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L readings, Recitations a 



Elocutionary Drill 



No.l. 



CHI CAGO. 



A.FLANAGAN, PUBLISHER. 

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- 




















Completely Revised—Every Problem New. Many Times Carefully 
Tested Before Publication. 

“Universal Arithmetical Papers.” 

FOR REVIEW—FOR EXAMINATION. 

“ Fascinating as a Story Book.” 

DESCRIPTION. 

Series I. Contains 50 papers of five problems each, in every imagin¬ 
able combination of the fundamental rules. Furnishing an excellent drill 
even for advanced pupils. 

Series 2. Contains 50 papers of five problems each, involving evtry 
principle of Common and Decimal Fractions and Denominate Numbers, 
usually presented in Practical Arithmetics. 

Series 3. Contains 50 papers of five problems each in every applica¬ 
tion of Percentage found in Practical Arithmetics. 

Series 4. Contains 50 papers of five problems each, in Fractions and 
Denominate Numbers, more difficult than those in series 2, and problems 
in Square and Cube Root and Mensuration. 

Series 5. Contains 50 papers of five problems each, in all subjects, 
and more difficult than any of the preceding. The mastery of this series 
implies the highest order of arithmetical skill. 

ADVANTAGES. 

They save the teacher hours of drudgery in the preparation of suitable 
problems and examination of work. 

They inspire the pupils with the highest enthusiasm. 

They confirm the principles taught in the text-book. 

They furnish the greatest variety of problems. 

The problems being different, there is no copying. 

They afford the readiest and simplest means of examination. 

They serve as a review, with none of its distaste. 

They arouse the pupils’s interest and ambition. 

They furnish the best possible test of the pupils’ relative standing. 

They are printed on separate papers 7 by 3^ inches, in large clear 
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PRICES. 

Any one of the five Series, with answers to the problems, together with a detailed 

plan for obtaining the best results, sent post paid on receipt of.... $ 25 

The five Series sent to one address, at one time... 1 00 

Four Series sent at one time to any person who has previously ordered one series... 85 

4 ^* Sent post paid on receipt of price. 

A KEY 

Containing full solutions to problems of Series 2, 3, 4 and 5, sent post paid on receipt of 

75 cents. Olive cloth, 152 pp. 


BROWN’S ELOCUTION AND ORATORY, 

BY I. H. BROWN, A. M. 

A practical and comprehensive MANUAD OF VOCAU AND PHYSICAL CTH» 
TURF, treating the subjects of Respiration, Articulation, Expression, Action, 
Grouping, Original Discourse and Extemporaneous Speech, from a scientific 
standpoint. 328 pages. Price $1.00 postpaid. 


A. FLANAGAN, Chicago. 





BROWN'S ELOCUTION ART SERIES . 


8 * 

BROWN’S 

Popular Readings 


A COLLECTION OF 

SERIOUS, HUMOROUS, DRAMATIC, PATRIOTIC, 
AND PATHETIC SELECTIONS. 


FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS. 


COMPILED BY 


CHARLES W. BROWN. 



MAY 821893 

Gy 


CHICAGO, 

A. FLANAGAN, Publisher. 


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COPYRIGHTED 1 893 

By A. FLANAGAN 


No series of speakers or dialogues published has had a greater 
oaio or circulation than the Brown Library of Speakers and Dia- 
fnlnZl More than a million (1,000,000) copies are sold annually in 
KL and many dealers write us that they handle no other series. 
A Tn vourdealer does not carry this series in stock, request 
him t^orde? a supply from his jobber, and place copies in the 
hands of your pijpls. to be used as supplementary work in the 
school-room, or ‘for school exhibitions. 


/ 



PREFACE 


^y 


The art of oratory is best acquired by the commit¬ 
ting and practice of approved examples of speeches 
and poems; hence, the aspirant for great oratorical 
skill should count no labor lost that requires much study 
and practice of what others have written and deliv¬ 
ered. Webster, Clay, Fox, and Sheridan, as well as 
the great orators of antiquity, owed their wonderful 
elocutionary powers to this practice; and he who would 
emulate their success must be willing to pay the price 
thereof. 

This volume is designed to accompany “Brown’s 
Common School Elocution and Oratory” and “Brown’s 
Rational Elocution and Reading.” Pupils having 
mastered these works will have but little difficulty in 
applying the proper elements in the delivery of the 
selections herein contained. It is believed that teachers 
and pupils will welcome a book containing a large 
number of selections adapted to the comprehension of 
the youth for whom they are intended. 

The compiler hereby acknowledges his thanks to 
the owners of many copyrighted selections from their 
publications, and to the authors who have courteously 
contributed the admirable articles to which their names 
are attached. 

Contributions to this series should be addressed to 
the compiler, 4 


CHARLES W. BROWN. 


(iii) 























































































♦ 












CONTENTS 


Page. 

Across the Rio Grand e—Charles W. Brown . 113 

Aged Prisoner, The —John G. Whittier . 115 

American Republic, The —Charles Phillips . 17 

Arnold, the Traitor—George Lippard . 162 

Arrow and the Song, The— H. W. Longfellow . 204 

Await the Issue —Thomas Carlyle . 184 

Bells, The —Edgar Allen Poe .. 139 

Birthday of Washington, 'Ihe —Rufus Choate . 14 

Blacksmith’s Story, The —Frank Olive . 177 

Boys, The —Oliver W. Holmes . 88 

Brakeman at Church, The— Robt. J. Burdette . 84 

Broken Pitcher, The. 206 

Brother Watkins —John B. Gough . 58 

Clarence’s Dream— Wm. Shakespeare . 118 

Connor.142 

Cricket on the Hearth, The —Charles Dickens . 80 

. Destruction of Pompeii— Bulwer-Lytton . 158 

Doom of Claudius and Cynthia, The —Maurice Thompson 96 

Dram-Drinker, The— J. Otis Rockwell. . 29 

Dream of Greatness, The— Rev. Daniel Wise . Ill 

Dutchman’s Telephone, The. 55 

Erin’s Flag —Father A. J. Ryan . 20 

Evangeline on the Prairie— H. W. Longfellow . 90 

Fall of the Roman Republic, The— T. E. Howard . 152 

First View of the Heavens, The— O. M. Mitchell . 36 

Freeman, The — William Cowper . 16 

Friend of the Fly, A. 53 

Ghosts — T. DeWitt Talmage... . 78 

Glass Railroad, The—George Lippard . 25 

God Bless Our School. 44 

“Good-Night Papa ”—American Messenger . 93 

Grateful Preacher, The —John G. Saxe .. 202 

Great Question, The. 40 

Hans Bleimer —Isaac Hinton Brown . 49 

Harvest of Rum, The —Paul Denton . 27 

Hero Woman, The —George Lippard . 105 

Homeward. 206 

How Dennis Took the Pledge. 20o 

Immortality —Phillips Brooks . 41 

In School Days —John G. Whittier . 46 

(v) 










































VI 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


I Vos So Glad I Vos Here. 

King Alcohol’s Soliloquy—fiarnef A. Sawyer . 

Lady of Lyons, Scene from— Bulwer . 

Last Hymn, The—Marianne Farningham . 

Loss of the Arctic— Beecher . 

Lovely Scene, A. 

Little Breeches —John Hay . 

Mark Twain’s Mining Story. 

Mary’s Lamb, with Variations. 

^Matt F. Ward’s Trial for Murder— John J. Crittenden... 

Midnight Tragedy, A.. 

Miss Maloney Goes to the Dentist.. . 

Napoleon’s Overthrow— Victor Hugo . 

Nathan Hale, the Martyr Spy—/. H. Brown . 

One Day Solitary—./. T. Trowbridge . 

Only a Pin. 

On the Other Train... 

Othello’s Defense— Wm. Shakespeare . 

Our Country— John G. Whittier . 

Powerof Habit, The— John B. Gough . 

Puzzled Census-Taker, The— John G. Saxe . 

Rainy Day, The— H. W . Longf ellow . 

Rome and Carthage— Victor Hugo . 

Sandalphon— H. W. Longfellow . 

Seventh Plague of Egypt, The. 

She Had Business with the Boss Mason. 

She Would Be a Mason. 

Stars in Our Flag, The— W. D. in Treasure Trove . 

Supporting the Guns —Detroit Free Press . . 

Suggestions on Reading—/. H. Brown .. 

Take Care— Alice Cary . 

This and Beyond— Isaac Hinton Brown . 

Those Evening Bells— Thomas Moore. ... 

Toussaint L’Ouverture— Wendell Phillips . 

True Teaching. 

Uncle Daniel’s Apparition— Mark Twain . 

United Order of Half Shells, The. 

Valedictory— Mollie Sanders .... 

Virginius to the Roman Army— Elijah Kellogg . 

Voltaire and Wilberforce— Wm. B. Sprague . 

What Infidelity Has Never Done. 

What Intemperance Does— Robt. G. Ingersoll . 

Which One?— Isaac Hinton Brown . 

Wife of Benedict Arnold, The— T. Berry Smith . 

Woodman, Spare that Tree— George P. Morris ... 


Page. 

. 64 
. 31 
. 189 
. 120 
. 155 
. 203 
. CO 
. 204 
. 57 

. 181 
. 207 
. 62 
. 126 
. 7 

,. 168 
.. 198 
135 
. 166 
.. 13 

.. 38 

.. 202 
.. 201 
.. 175 
.. 35 
.. 122 
.. 66 
.. 70 
.. 19 

.. 132 
.. 208 
.. 48 

.. 200 
.. 199 
.. 172 
.. 207 
.. 73 
.. 51 

.. 47 
.. 186 
.. 32 

.. 197 
.. 23 
.. 197 
.. 92 
.. 161 


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BROWN’S 

POPULAR READINGS 


NATHAN HALE, THE MARTYR SPY. 

Isaac Hinton Brown. 


After the disastrous defeat of the Americans on Long Island, 
Washington desired information respecting the British position 
and movements. Capt. Nathan Hale, but twenty-one years old, vol¬ 
unteered to procure the information. He was taken, and hanged as 
a spy Ihe day after his capture. Sept. 22,1776. His patriotic devotion 
and brutal treatment received at the hands of his captors have sug¬ 
gested the following: 

’Twas in the year that gave the Nation birth— 

A time when men esteemed the common good 
As greater weal than private gain. A battle fierce 
And obstinate had laid a thousand patriots low, 

And filled the people’s hearts with gloom. 

Pursued like hunted deer, 

The crippled army fled; and, yet, amid 
Disaster and defeat, the Nation’s chosen chief 
Resolved his losses to retrieve. But not 
With armies disciplined and trained by years 

(7) 




8 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


Of martial service could he, this Fabian chief, 

Now hope to check the hosts of Howe’s victorious 
legions— 

These had he not. 

In stratagem the shrewder general 
Ofttimes o’ercomes his strong antagonist. 

To Washington a knowledge of the plans, 

Position, strength of England’s force, 

Must compensate for lack of numbers. 

He casts about for one who’d take his life 
In hand. Lo! he stands before the chief. In face, 

A boy—in form, a man on whom the eye could rest 
In search of God’s perfect handiwork; 

In culture, grace, and speech, reflecting all 
A mother’s love could lavish on an only son. 

The chieftain’s keen, discerning eye 
Appraised the youth at his full worth, and saw 
In him those blending qualities that make 
The hero and the sage. He fain would save 
For nobler deeds a man whose presence marked 
A spirit born to lead. 

“Young man,” he said with kindly air, 

“ Your country and* commander feel grateful that 
Such talents are offered in this darkening hour. 

Have you, in reaching this resolve, considered well 
Your fitness, courage, strength—the act, the risk, 

You undertake? Have you, in that fine balance which 
Detects an atom on either beam, weighed well 
Your chances of escape ’gainst certain fate 
Should capture follow in the British camp?” 


BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 


9 


In tones of fitting modesty that well 
Became his years, the patriot answered thus: 

“ My country’s honor, safety, life, it ever was 
My highest purpose to defend: that country’s foes 
Exultant sweep through ruined land and home 
And field. A thousand stricken hearts bewail 
The loss of those who late our standards bore; 

Appeal to us through weeping eyes, whose tears 
We can not brush away with words. The ranks 
Of those now cold in death are not replaced 
By living men. The hour demands a duty rare— 
Perhaps a sacrifice. If God and training in 
The schools have given me capacities 
This duty to perform, the danger of the enterprise 
Should not deter me from the act 
Whose issue makes our country free. In times 
Like these a Nation’s life sometimes upon 
A single life depends. If mine be deemed 
A fitting sacrifice, God grant a quick 
Deliverance.” 

“ Enough; go then, at once,” the great 
Commander said. “ May Heaven’s guardian angels 
give 

You safe return. Adieu.” 

Disguised with care, the hopeful captain 
crossed 

The bay, and moved through British camp 
Without discovery by troops or refugees. 

The enemy’s full strength, in men, in stores, 

Munitions, guns,—all military accoutrements— 

Were noted with exact precision; while, 



10 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


With graphic sketch, each trench and parapet, 
Casemated battery, magazine, and every point 
Strategic was drawn with artist’s skill. 

The task complete, the spy with heart 
Elate now sought an exit through the lines. 

Well might he feel a soldier’s pride. An hour hence 
A waiting steed would bear him to his friends. 

His plans he’d lay before his honored chief; 

His single hand might turn the tide of war, 

His country yet be free. 

“Halt!” A British musket leveled at 
His head dimmed all the visions of his soul. 

A dash—an aimless shot; the spy bore down 

Upon the picket with a blow that else 

Had freed him from his clutch, but for a score 

Of troopers stationed near. In vain the struggle fierce 

And desperate—in vain demands to be released. 

A tory relative, for safety quartered in 

The British camp, would prove his truckling loyalty 

With kinsman’s blood. A word—a look— 

A motion of the head, and he who’d dared 
So much in freedom’s name was free no more. 

O Judas, self-condemned! thou art 
But the type of many a trait’rous friend, 

Who ere and since thy time betrayed to death 
A noble heart. Henceforth be doubly doomed— 

A base example to earth’s weaker souls. 

Before Lord Howe the captive youth 
Was led. “ Base dog!” the haughty general said; 
u Ignoble son of loyal sires! you’ve played the spy 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


11 


Quite well I ween. The cunning skill wherewith 
You wrought these plans and charts might well adorn 

An honest man; but in a rebel’s hands they’re vile 
And mischievous. If aught may palliate 
A traitor’s act, attempted in his sovereign’s camp, 

I bid you speak ere I pronounce your sentence.” 

With tone and mien that hushed 
The buzzing noise of idle lackeys in the hall, 

The patriot thus replied: “You know my name— 

My rank;—my treacherous kinsman made 
My purpose plain. I’ve nothing further of myself 
To tell beyond the charge of traitor to deny. 

The brand of spy I do accept without reproach; 

But never since I’ve known the base ingratitude 
Of king to loyal subjects of his realm 
Has British rule been aught to me than barbarous 
Despotism which God and man abhor, and none 
But dastards fear to overthrow. 

“For tyrant royalty your lordship represents 
I never breathed a loyal breath; and he 
Who calls me traitor seeks a pretext for a crime 
His trembling soul might well condemn.” 

“I’ll hear no more such prating cant,” 

Said Howe; “your crime’s enough to hang a dozen men. 
Before to-morrow’s sun goes down you’ll swing 
’Twixt earth and heaven, that your countrymen 
May know a British camp is dangerous ground 
For prowling spies. Away.” 

* * * * * * * 


j 


12 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


In loathsome cell, deprived 
Of holy sacrament, and e’en the wo*d of Him 
Who cheered the thief upon the cross,—refused 
The means wherewith he would indite his last 
Farewell to her who gave him life, 

And to another whose young heart 

The morrow’s work would shade in gloom,— 

He passed the night in charge of one whom Satan had 
Commissioned hell’s sharpest torments to inflict. 

* * * * * * * 

Securely bound upon a cart, amid 
A speechless crowd, he stands beneath a strong 
Projecting limb, to which a rope with noose attached 
Portends a tragic scene. He casts his eyes 
Upon the surging multitude. Clearly now 
His tones ring out as victors shout in triumph: 

“ Men, I do not die in vain. 

My humble death upon this tree will light anew 
The Torch of Liberty. A hundred hands to one 
Before will strike for country, home, and God, 

And fill our ranks with men of faith in His 
Eternal plan to make this people free. 

A million prayers go up this day to free 

The land from blighting curse of tyrant’s rule. 

Oppression’s wrongs have reached Jehovah’s throne: 

The God of vengeance smites the foe! This land_ 

This glorious land—is free—is free! 

“ My friends, farewell! In dying thus 
I feel but one regret; it is the one poor life 
I have to give in Freedom’s cause.” 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


13 


IN WINTER-TIDE * 

The whirling snow is driven 
Over earth and heaven, until the dazzling plains, 

Like white, blown lilies*, unfold their bloodless veins 
In winter-tide. 

The brook once brightly flowing 
With rushes growing, hath flowered banks no more, 
And drowsy lispeth unto the sleeping shore. 

But snow-flakes softly sinking, 

The welkin sprinkling with crystal, bursting bloom, 
Weaves wondrous flowers from out a mystic loom 
In winter-tide. 

The hermit hemlock drooping, 

With whke head stooping, like priest in sacred rite, 
Chants solemn masses upon the echoing night. 

The new moon sweetly beaming, 

In snow-drops gleaming, enhanc.s light with light; 

Its bow of silver bends from mirrows white 
In winter-tide. 

In strange mosaic sketching, 

On my window stretching, a power with magic means 
Hath pictured roses and wreaths of summer scenes. 

Over their delicate seeming 
With wistful dreaming I linger till drear day, 
Iconoclastic, breaks images away 
In winter-tide. 


♦Kindly contributed to this series by the author, Mr. John 
Patterson, Lexington, Ky. 


14 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


Then in my bosom swelling, 

The sweet thought dwelling, a pencil jewel-faced 
Unfading flowers engraves on memory chaste, 

So coming day of sorrow 
Of sad to-morrow can not melt away 
The mind’s own flowers—as fades this frosted spray 
In winter-tide. 


THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON. 

Rufus Choate. 

The birthday of the “Father of his Country!” 
May it ever be freshly remembered by American 
hearts! May it ever re-awaken in them a filial venera¬ 
tion for his memory; ever re-kindle the fires of patriotic 
regard for the country which he loved so well, to which 
he gave his youthful vigor and his youthful energy, 
during the perilous period of the early Indian warfare; 
to which he devoted his life in the maturity of his 
powers, in the field; to which again he offered the 
counsels of his wisdom and his experience, as presi¬ 
dent of the convention that framed our Constitution; 
which he guided and directed while in the chair of 
state, and for which the last prayer of his earthly 



BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


15 


supplication was offered up, when it came the moment 
for him so well, and so grandly, and so calmly, to die. 

He was the first man of the time in which he grew. 
His memory is first and most sacred in our love, and 
ever hereafter, till the last drop of blood shall freeze 
in the last American heart, his name shall be a spell of 
power and of might. 

Yes, gentlemen, there is one personal, one vast felic¬ 
ity, which no man can share with him. It was the 
daily beauty, and towering and matchless glory of his 
life which enabled him to create his country, and at 
the same time secure an undying love and regard 
from the whole American people. “ The first in the 
hearts of his countrymen!” Yes, first! He has our 
first and most fervent love. 

Undoubtedly there were brave and wise and good 
men, before his day, in every colony. But the Amer¬ 
ican nation, as a nation, I do not reckon to have begun 
before 1774 . And the first love of that Young Amer¬ 
ica was Washington. The first word she lisped was 
his name. Her earliest breath spoke it. It still is her 
proud ejaculation; and it will be the last gasp of her 
expiring life. 

Yes; others of our great men have been appre¬ 
ciated—many admired by all; but him we love; him 
we all love. About and around him we call up no 
dissentient and discordant and dissatisfied elements— 
no sectional prejudice nor bias—no party, no creed, 
no dogma of politics. None of these shall assail him. 
Yes: when the storm of battle blows darkest and 
rages highest the memory of Washington shall nerve 
every American arm, and cheer every American heart. 


1G 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS . 


THE FREEMAN. 

William Cowper. 

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, 

And all are slaves beside. There’s not a chain 
That hellish foes, confederate for his harm, 

Can wind around him, but he casts it off 
With as much ease as Samson his green withes. 

He looks abroad into the varied field 
Of nature; and though poor, perhaps, compared 
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, 

Calls the delightful scenery all his own. 

His are the mountains, and the valley his, 

And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy 
With a propriety that none can feel, 

But who, with filial confidence inspired, 

Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, 

And smiling say: “My father made them all!” 

Are they not his by a peculiar right, 

And by an emphasis of interest his, 

Whose eyes they fill with tears of holy joy, 

Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind 
With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love 
That planned, and built, and still upholds a world 
So clothed with beauty for rebellious man? 

Yes, ye may fill your garners, ye that reap 
The loaded soil, and ye may waste mucli good 
In senseless riot, but ye will not find 
In feast, or in the chase, in song or dance, 

A liberty like his, who, unimpeached 
Of usurpation, and to no man’s wrong, 

Appropriates nature as his Father’s work, 

And has a richer use of yours than you. 

He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


17 


Of no mean city, planned or e’er the hills 
Were built, the fountains opened, or the sea 
With all his roaring multitude of waves. 

His freedom is the same in every state; 

And no condition of this changeful life, 

So manifold in cares, whose every day 
Brings its own evil with it, makes it less. 

For he has wings that neither sickness, pain, 

Nor penury can cripple or confine; 

No nook so narrow but he spreads them there 
With ease, and is at large. The oppressor holds 
His body bound, but he knows not what a range 
His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain; 

And that to bind him is a vain attempt, 

Whom God delights in, and in whom He dwells. 


THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 

Charles Phillips. 

Search creation round, where can you find a country 
that presents so sublime a view, so interesting an an¬ 
ticipation? What noble institutions! What a compre¬ 
hensive policy! What a wise equalization of every 
political advantage! The oppressed of all countries, 
the martyrs of every creed, the innocent victim of 
despotic arrogance or superstitious frenzy, may there 
find refuge; his industry encouraged, his piety respected, 
his ambition animated; with no restraint but those laws 
which are the same to all, and no distinction but that 
which his merit may originate. 

Who can deny that the existence of such a country 
presents a subject for human congratulation! Who can 

deny that its gigantic advancement offers a field for the 
2 



18 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


most rational conjecture! At the end of the very next 
century, if she proceeds as she seems to promise, what 
a wondrous spectacle may she not exhibit! Who shall 
say for what purpose mysterious Providence may not 
have designed her! Who shall say that when in its 
follies or its crimes the Old World may have buried all 
the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its civiliza¬ 
tion, human nature may not find its destined renovation 
in the New? When its temples and its trophies shall 
have mold eyed into dust; when the glories of its name 
shall be but the legend of tradition, and the light of its 
achievements live only in song; philosophy will revive 
again in the sky of her Franklin, and glory will re¬ 
kindle at the urn of her Washington. 

Is this the vision of romantic fancy? Is it even im¬ 
probable? I appeal to History. Tell me, thou rever¬ 
end chronicler of the grave, can all the illusions of am¬ 
bition realized,—can all the wealth of an universal 
commerce,—can all the achievements of successful 
heroism, or all the establishments of this world’s wis¬ 
dom, secure to empire the permanency of its possessions ? 
Alas, Troy thought so once; yet the land of Priam 
lives only in song! Thebes thought so once; yet her 
hundred gates have. crumbled, and her very tombs are 
but as the dust they were vainly intended to commem¬ 
orate ! So thought Palmyra,—where is she ? So thought 
the countries of Demosthenes and the Spartan; yet, 
Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens in¬ 
sulted by the servile, mindless, and enervate Ottoman. 

"In his hurried march, Time has but looked at their 
imagined immortality, and all its vanities, from the 
palace to the tomb, have, with their ruins, erased the 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


19 


very impression of his footsteps. The days of their 
glory are as if they had never been; and the island that 
was then a speck, rude and neglected in the barren 
ocean, now rivals the ubiquity of their commerce, the 
glory of their arms, the fame of their philosophy, the 
eloquence of their senate, and the inspiration of their 
bards! Who shall say, then, contemplating the past, 
that England, proud and potent as she appears, may not 
one day be what Athens is, and the young America yet 
soar to be what Athens was? Who shall say, when 
the European column shall have moldered, and the 
night of barbarism obscured its very ruins, that that 
mighty continent may not emerge from the horizon, to 
rule, for the time, sovereign of the ascendant! 


THE STARS IN OUR FLAG. 

W. D., in Treasure Trove. 

An English gentleman, who seems to be so far a 
backslider from the traditions of his race as to find the 
American flag a matter of serious interest, has lately 
been investigating the subject, with some curious results. 
On a visit to the church at Brington, near Althorp, the 
parish clerk called attention to the memorial brass plate, 
of the Washingtons, bearing the arms of the family, 
the stars and stripes. Further search discoverd other 
brasses on the tombs of different members of the family 
as far back as 1560, all bearing the same design—stars 
and stripes., 

When that John Washington who was the great¬ 
grandfather of “our George” emigrated to America 
the family shield and crest were not forgotten. In 
course of time the “great Washington” of Virginia 



' 20 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


came to bear this emblem in many ways about his per¬ 
son. There were two watch-seals and a book-mark, and 
the design, too, was blazed on the panels of his carriage. 
No item was omitted—the red bars, the five-pointed 
stars, and the raven issuant out of the ducal coronet 
were all there. 

This seal is still seen attached to the commission of 
some of the officers of the Army of Independence. 
What could be more natural than that the family coat-of- 
arms of George Washington should be adopted as the 
national emblem by the country he had served? 

But one curious fact is, that what we call stars were 
not originally intended as such; but were simply meant 
to represent the rowels of spurs , or, as they are termed 
in the parlance of heraldry, “mullets;” and the bird 
that suggested the spread-eagle was, in the original, 
simply a raven issuing out of a ducal coronet; “issuant” 
is the heraldic term, or as we would say in Yankee land, 
“on the rise.” The whole concern has been on the rise 
ever since; the rowels of war have already been trans¬ 
formed into stars of peace, and although the eagle 
allowed the ducal coronet to fall from its talons at the 
first flap, we Americans are proudly confident that our 
glorious bird will continue its upward course until it 
reaches the sun. 


ERIN’S FLAG. 

Father A. J. Ryan. 

Unroll Erin’s Flag! fling its folds to the breeze! 

Letjt float o’er the land, let it wave o’er the seas; 

Lift it out of the dust—let it wave as of yore, 

When its chiefs with their clans stood around it and 


swore 



/ 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 21 

That never, no, never, while God gave them life, 

And they had an arm and a sword for the strife, 

That never, no, never, that banner would yield, 

As long as the heart of a Celt was its shield— 

While the hand of a Celt had a weapon to wield, 

And his last drop of blood was unshed on the field. 

Lift it up! wave it high!—’tis as bright as of old; 

Not a stain on its green, not a blot on its gold, 

Though the woes and the wrongs of three hundred 
years 

Have drenched Erin’s sunburst with blood and with tears; 
Though the clouds of oppression enshroud it in gloom, 
And around it the thunders of tyranny boom; 

Look aloft! look aloft! lo! the cloud’s drifting by, 

There is a gleam through the gloom, there is a light in 
the sky. 

’Tis the sunburst resplendent, far-flashing on high; 
Erin’s dark night is waning, her day-dawn is nigh. 

Lift it up! lift it tip! the old banner of green; 

The blood of its sons has but brightened its sheen. 
What though the tyrant has trampled it down— 

Are its folds not emblazoned with deeds of renown?* 
What though for ages it droops in the dust— 

Shall it droop thus forever? No! no! God is just! 
Take it up! take it up from the tyrant’s foul tread, 
Lest he tear the green flag; we will snatch its last shred, 
And beneath it we’ll bleed as our forefathers bled, 

And we’ll vow by the dust in the graves of our dead, 
And we’ll swear by the blood that the Briton has shed, 
And we’ll vow by the wrecks which through Erin he 
spread, 


22 


BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 


And we’ll swear by the thousands who famished, 
unfed, 

Died down in the ditches—wild howling for bread; 
And we’ll vow by our heroes, whose spirits have fled, 
And we’ll swear by the bones in each coffinless bed, 
That we’ll battle the Briton through danger and dread; 
That we’ll cling to the cause which we glory to wed 
Till the gleam of our steel and the shock of our lead 
Shall prove to the foe that we mean what we said— 
That we’ll lift up the green, and we’ll tear down the 
red. 

Lift up the green flag! oh! it wants to go home. 

Full long has its lot been to wander and roam; 

It has followed the fate of its sons o’er the world, 

But its folds, like their hopes, are not faded or furled; 
Like a weary-winged bird, to the east and the west 
It has flitted and fled, but it never shall rest, 

’Till pluming its pinions, it sweeps o’er the main, 

And speeds to the shore of its old home again, 

Where its fetterless folds o’er each mountain and plain 
Shall wave with a glory that never shall wane. 

Take it up! take it up! bear it back from afar! 

That banner must blaze ’mid the lightning of war; 

Lay your hands on its folds, lift your eyes to the sky, 
And swear that you’ll bear it triumphant or die; 

And shout to the clans scattered far o’er the earth 
To join in the march to the land of their birth; 

And, whatever the exiles ’neath heaven’s broad dome 
Have been fated to suffer, to sorrow and roam, 

They’ll bound on the sea, and away o’er the foam 
They’ll march to the music of “ Home, Sweet Home*” 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 23 

WHAT INTEMPERANCE DOES. 

Robert G. Ingersoll. 

[The Colonel was lately employed in a case which involved the 
manufacture of ardent spirits, and in his speech to the jury he used 
the following language:] 

I am aware there is a prejudice against any man 
engaged in the manufacture of alcohol. I believe, fiom 
the time it issues from the coiled and poisonous worm 
in the distillery until it empties into the hell of death, 
that it is demoralizing to everybody that touches it, 
from the source to where it ends. I do not believe that 
anybody can contemplate the subject without being 
prejudiced against the crime. All they have to do is to 
think of the wrecks on either side of the stream of death, 
of the suicides, of the insanity, of the poverty, of the 
destruction, of the little children tugging at the breast, 
of weeping and despairing wives asking for bread, of 
the man struggling with imaginary serpents produced 
by this devilish thing; and when you think of the jails, 
of the almshouses, of the asylums, of the prisons, and of 
the scaffolds, on either bank, I do not wonder that every 
thoughtful man is prejudiced against this vile stuff called 
alcohol. 

Intemperance cuts down youth in its vigor, manhood 
in its strength, and age in its weakness. It breaks the 
father’s heart, bereaves the doting mother, extinguishes 
natural affection, erases conjugal love, blots out filial 
attachment, blights parental hope, and brings down 
mourning age in sorrow to the grave. It produces weak¬ 
ness, not strength; sickness, not health; death, not life. 
It makes wives widows, children orphans, fathers fiends, 
and all of them paupers and beggars. It feeds rheuma¬ 
tism, nurses gout, welcomes epidemics, invites cholera, 


24 


BROWN'S- POPULAR READINGS. 


imports pestilence, and embraces consumption. It 
covers the land with idleness, poverty, disease, and 
crime. It fills your jails, supplies your almshouses, and 
demands your asylums. It engenders controversies, 
fosters quarrels, and cherishes riots. It crowds your 
penitentiaries, and furnishes the victims for your scaf¬ 
folds. It is the life-blood of the gambler, the aliment 
of the counterfeiter, the prop of the highwayman, and 
the support of the midnight incendiary. It countenances 
the liar, respects the thief, and esteems the blasphemer. 
It violates obligation, reverences fraud, and honors 
infamy. It defames benevolence, hates love, scorns 
virtue, and slanders innocence. It incites the father to 
butcher his helpless offspring, helps the husband to 
massacre his wife, and aids the child to grind the parri¬ 
cidal axe. It burns up man and consumes woman, 
detests life, curses God, and despises heaven. It suborns 
witnesses, nurses perjury, defiles the jury-box, and 
stains the judicial ermine. It bribes voters, disqualifies 
votes, corrupts elections, pollutes our institutions, and 
endangers our government. It degrades the citizen, 
debases the legislator, dishonors the statesman, and dis¬ 
arms the patriot. It brings shame, not honor; terror, 
not safety; despair, not hope; misery, not happiness; 
and with the malevolence of a fiend, it calmly surveys 
its frightful desolations; and, insatiated with havoc, it 
poisons felicity, kills peace, ruins morals, blights confi¬ 
dence, slays reputation, and wipes out national .honor, 
then curses the world and laughs at its ruin. 

It does all that and more. It murders the soul . It 
is the sum of all villainies; the father of crimes; the 
mother of all abominations; the curse of curses; the 
devil’s best friend, and God’s worst enemy. 


25 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 

THE GLASS RAILROAD. 

George Lippard. 

It seemed to me as though I had been suddenly 
aroused from my slumber. I looked around and found 
myself in the center of a gay crowd. The first sensa¬ 
tion I experienced was that of being borne along with 
a-peculiar motion. I looked around and found that I 
was in a long train of cars which were gliding over a 
railway, and seemed to be many miles in length. It 
was composed of many cars. Every car, open at the 
top, was filled with men and women, all gayly dressed 
and happy, and all laughing, talking, and singing. The 
peculiarly gentle motion of the cars interested me. 
There was no grating, such as we usually hear on the 
railroad. They moved along without the least jar or 
sound. This, I say, interested me. I looked over the 
side, and, to my astonishment, found the railroad and 
cars made of glass. The glass wheels moved over the 
glass rails without the least noise or oscillation. The 
soft, gliding motion produced a feeling of exquisite 
happiness. I was happy! It seemed as if everything 
was at rest within—I was full of peace. 

While I was wondering over this circumstance, a new 
sight attracted my gaze. All along the road, within a 
foot of the track, were laid long lines of coffins on 
either side of the railroad, and every one contained a 
corpse dressed for burial, with its cold, white face 
turned upward to the light. The sight filled me with 
horror; I yelled in agony, but could make no sound. 
The gay throng who were around me only redoubled 
their singing and laughter at the sight of my agony, 
and we swept on, gliding on with glass wheels over the 


26 BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 

railroad, every moment coming nearer to the bend of 
the road, which formed an angle with the road, far, fai 
in the distance. 

“Who are those?” I cried at last, pointing to the 
dead in the coffins. 

“ Those are the persons who made the trip before 
us,” was the reply of one of the gayest persons near me. 

“ What trip? ” I asked. 

“ Why, the trip you are now making; the trip on this 
glass railway,” was the answer. 

“ Why do they lie along the road, each one in his 
coffin ? ” I was answered with a whisper and a half 
laugh which froze my blood: 

“ They were dashed to death at the end of the rail¬ 
road,” said the person whom I addressed. 

“You know, the railroad terminates at an abyss 
which is without bottom or measure. It is lined with 
pointed rocks. As each car arrives at the end it pre¬ 
cipitates its passengers into the abyss. They are dashed 
to pieces against the rocks, and their bodies are brought 
here and placed in the coffins as a warning to other 
passengers; but no one minds it, we are so happy on 
the glass railroad.” 

I can never describe the horror with which these 
words inspired me. 

“What is the name of the glass railroad ?” I asked. 

The person whom I asked replied in the same 
strain: 

“It is very easy to get into the cars, but very hard to 
get out. For, once in these, everybody is delighted 
with the soft, gliding motion. The cars move gently. 
Yes, this is a railroad of habit, and with glass wheels 


BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 


27 


we are whirled over a glass railroad toward a fathom¬ 
less abyss. In a few moments we’ll be there, and 
they’ll bring our bodies and put them in coffins as a 
warning to others; but nobody will mind it, will they?” 

I was choked with horror. I struggled to breathe, 
made frantic efforts to leap from the cars, and in the 
struggle I awoke. I know it was only a dream, yet 
whenever I think of it I can see that long train of cars 
moving gently over the glass railroad. I can see cars 
far ahead, as they are turning the bend of the road. I 
can see the dead in their coffins clear and distinct on 
either side of the road; while the laughing and singing 
of the gay and happy passengers resound in my ears, I 
only see the cold faces of the dead, with their glassy 
eyes uplifted, and their frozen hands upon their shrouds. 

It was, indeed, a horrible dream. A long train of 
glass cars, gliding over a glass railway, freighted with 
youth, beauty, and music, while on either hand are 
stretched the victims of yesterday—gliding over the 
railway of habit toward the fathomless abyss. 

“There was a moral in that dream.” 

Reader, are you addicted to any sinful habit? Break 
it off ere you dash against the rocks. 


THE HARVEST OF RUM. 

Paul Denton . 

Streaming down the ages, blighting the rose-buds, 
shriveling the grasses, scorching the heart, and blistering 
the soul, has come a lurid tongue of flame which, heated 
by the madness of hell, has hissed out the terrors of 
death and dropped over the earth a sea of unutterable 



28 


BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 


woe. In the darkness of midnight it has gathered 
intensity of brightness and glared about the hearth¬ 
stones, wet with the weeping of wives, mothers, and 
children, and bronzed the beauty of earth with the 
horrid cast of hell. Twisting around the altar of the 
church, it has wreathed the sweetest flowers that ever 
attempted to bloom for the adornment of Heaven, and 
has fed death from the very waters of life; at the very 
door of Heaven itself, it has glowed with appalling mad¬ 
ness and been almost an impassable wall of flame 
between misery and bliss. 

Dripping burning drops of agony into the tenderest 
depths of writhing souls, they have wailed and wept 
and hissed unutterable despair, and pleaded with God to 
blot them from existence forever. This blighting, 
glowing, burning, damning curse of the world is the 
demon Intemperance. Language has never been made 
that can depict it in all its hideousness. Look on that 
stack of skeletons that rears its ghastly form—an insult 
to God—high in the clouds, and shapes the whistling 
winds into an utterance of withering denunciation of 
the fiery monster that gnawed and scalded and burned 
and tore the mangled, bleeding flesh from those bones 
and tossed them into that revolting pile! 

Come, ye writhing, pleading, suffering souls that 
were robbed of Heaven by this sparkling tempter, and 
cast the black shadow of your wretchedness upon the 
faces of the living. O graves, give up your bloated, fester¬ 
ing millions, and stretch them, in all their rum-scorched 
ghastliness, over the plains and mountain-tops! Come 
forth, ye torn, haggard* and bleeding souls, from the 
time of Noah until to-night. Hold up your bony, 


BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 29 

withered, skeleton hands, ye countless millions of 
starved and starving women and children! Come, all 
the floods of agonizing tears that scorched as the lurid 
fires of hell where’er they touched, and boil, and blub¬ 
ber, and foam, and hiss in one vast steaming, seething 
ocean. Come, death and hell and agony, with your 
harvest, garnered from the still and the brewery, and 
let us mass them in one black, horrifying portraiture of 
the damned. And let it tell to the shuddering, trem- 
bling souls what language never can. 


THE DRAM-DRINKER. 

J ’• Otis Rockwell. 

Pray, Mr. Dram-Drinker, how do you do? 

What in perdition’s the matter with you? 

How did you come by that bruise on the head? 

Why are your eyes so infernally red ? 

Why do you mutter that infidel hymn? 

Why do you tremble in every limb? 

Who has done this? Let the reason be shown, 

And let the offender be pelted with stone. 

And the dram-drinker said: “If you listen to me, 

You shall hear what you hear, and see what you see. 

“I had a father—the grave is his bed; 

I had a mother—she sleeps with the dead. 

Truly I wept when they left me alone; 

But I shed all my tears on their grave and their stone. 
I planted a willow, I planted a yew, 

And left them to sleep till the last trumpet blew. 

Fortune was mine; I mounted her car_ 

Pleasure from virtue had beckoned me far. 



30 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


Onward I went, like an avalanche, down, 

And the sunshine of fortune was changed to a frown. 

“Fortune was gone, and I took to my side 
A young and a lovely and beautiful bride! 

Her I entreated with coldness and scorn, 

Tarrying backtill the break of the morn; 

Slighting her kindness and mocking her fears 
Casting a blight on her tenderest years! 

Sad and neglected and weary I left her; 

Sorrow and care of her reason bereft her; 

Till, like a star when it falls from its pride, 

She sunk on the bosom of misery, and died. 

“I had a child, and it grew like a vine; 

Fair as the rose of Damascus was mine; 

Fair—and I watched over her innocent youth, 

As an angel of Heaven would watch over truth. 

She grew like her mother, in feature and form; 

Her blue eye was languid, her cheek was too warm. 
Seventeen summers had shone on her brow— 

The seventeenth winter beheld her laid low! 

Yonder they sleep, in their graves, side by side— 

A father, a mother, a daughter, a bride.” 

Go to your children, and tell them the tale; 

Tell them his cheek, too, was lividly pale; 

Tell them his eye was bloodshot and cold; 

Tell them his purse was a stranger to gold; 

Tell them he passed through the world they are in 
The victim of sorrow and misery and sin; 

Tell them, when life’s shameful conflicts were past, 
In horror and anguish he perished at last. 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


31 


KING ALCOHOL’S SOLILOQUY. 

Harriet Adams Sawyer. 

In the broad light of day my grim visage I hide 
Nor out in my uniform once dare I ride, 

For ’tis red with the blood of the victims I’ve slain 
And it spangles with tears, like the dew on the main. 
That a victor I am, there is none to deny, 

For, who rules and ruins so many as I? 

See my army move on! None can with it compare. 
Though they fall by the myriads, why should I care? 
For recruits, always ready, come pressing along. 

How I gloat o’er their revelry, joy in their song! 

I am not content with aught, save the best— 

My recruits must be generous, their all must invest. 

But a single draught, and I count them mine, 

On my black-list enroll them, ere the truth they divine. 
Out of the specie that falls in the till 
I forge chains, to make them the slaves of my will. 
The king on his throne and the prince in the hall 
Pay homage and bow before King Alcohol. 

In dungeons the prisoners have pined and have died, 
Still their spirits were free, and all bondage defied; 

But my chains bind in manhood the God-given will; 
Though they long to be free, they are prisoners still. 
Press closely, O mother, your boy to your breast; 
Though your arms may be weary, your heart may now 
rest. 

Press again to your lips those tiny pink feet, 

For I’ll cause them to fall, and to fall in the street. 
Listen! how with sweet accents he now lisps thy name. 
I will cause him his Maker’s and thine to defame. 

I’ll await him in banquet, in home, and in hall; 

That beautiful boy—by my oath—he shall fall! 


32 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


I hear the uprising of men o’er the land 
Against my dominions—a host they command— 

But, at all legislations and legions I laugh, 

While with my battalions my poison I quaff. 

But there is one name—I must whisper it low— 

’Tis humanity's refuge, but my dreaded foe; 

It has power to lift up my veriest slave; 

At its mention I quail—ha! I thought I was brave! 
That name—I can’t speak it, I’ll try to forget. 

Drink again, O my boys, ere the stars are all set! 

I have lost from my force some I thought were my own 
As they looked and were saved by the Crucified One. 
Then royse ye, my children. Find joy in the bowl; 
Ye must not grow tender, nor think of the soul. 

When the tongue cries for liquor, let no prayer be said, 
Though the children are crying and praying for bread. 
If the thought of a mother, wife, sister, or child 
Mingles pain with the draught, let your mirth grow 
more wild. 

Drink again, O my boys, and again, one and all, 

For ye are my slaves—I am King Alcohol! 


VOLTAIRE AND WILBERFORCE. 

Wm B. Sprague. 

Let me now, for a moment, show you what the two 
systems—Atheism and Christianity—can do, have done, 
for individual character; and I can think of no two 
names to which I may refer with more confidence, in 
the way of illustration, than Voltaire and Wilberforce; 
both of them names which stand out with prominence. 

Voltaire was, perhaps, the master-spirit in the school 
of French Atheism; and though he was not alive to 



BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


33 


participate in the horrors of the revolution, probably he 
did more by his writings to combine the elements for 
that tremendous tempest than any other man. And 
now I undertake to say that you may draw a character 
in which there shall be as much of the blackness of 
moral turpitude as your imagination can supply, and yet 
you shall not have exceeded the reality as it was found 
in the character of this apostle of Atheism. You may 
throw into it the darkest shades of selfishness, making 
the man a peifect idolater of himself; you may paint the 
serpent in his most wily form to represent deceit and 
cunning; you may let sensuality stand forth in all the 
loathsomeness of a beast in the mire; you may bring 
out envy and malice and all the baser and all the 
darker passions, drawing nutriment from the pit; and 
when you have done this, you may contemplate the 
character of Voltaire, and exclaim: “Here is the mon¬ 
strous original!” The fires of his genius kindled only 
to withei and consume; he stood, for almost a century, 
a great tree of poison, not only cumbering the ground, 
but infusing death into the atmosphere; and though its 
foliage has long since dropped off, and its branches have 
withered, and its trunk fallen, under the band of time, 
its deadly root still remains; and the very earth that 
nourishes it is cursed for its sake. 

And now I will speak of Wilberforce; and I do it 
with gratitude and triumph—gratitude to the God who 
made him what he was; triumph that there is that in 
his very name which ought to make Atheism turn pale. 
Wilberforce was the friend of man. Wilberforce was 
the friend of enslaved and wretched man. Wilberforce 
(for I love to repeat his name) consecrated the energies 

3 


34 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


of his whole life to one of the noblest objects of be¬ 
nevolence. It was in the cause of injured Africa that he 
often passed the night in intense and wakeful thought; 
that he counseled with the wise, and reasoned with the 
unbelieving, and expostulated with the unmerciful; 
that his heart burst forth with all its melting tender¬ 
ness, and his genius with all its electric fire; that he 
turned the most accidental meeting into a conference 
for the relief of human woe, and converted even the 
Senate House into a theater of benevolent action. 
Though his zeal had at one time almost eaten him up, 
and the vigor of his frame was so far gone that he 
stooped over and looked into his own grave, yet his 
faith failed not; and, blessed be God, the vital spark 
was kindled up anew, and he kept on laboring through 
a long succession of years; and at length, just as his 
friends were gathering around him to receive his last 
whisper, and the angels were gathering around to 
receive his departing spirit, the news, worthy to be 
borne by angels, was brought to him that the great 
object to which his life had been given was gained; 
and then, Simeon like, he clasped his hands to die, and 
went off to Heaven with the sound of deliverance 
to the captive vibrating sweetly upon his ear. 

Both Voltaire and Wilberforce are dead; but each of 
them lives in the character he has left behind him. 
And now who does not delight to honor the character 
of the one? Who does not shudder to contemplate the 
character of the other? 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


35 


SANDALPHON. * 

H. W. Longfellow. 

1. Have you read in the Talmud of old, 

In the Legends the Rabbins have told, 

Of the limitless realms of the air; 

Have you read it—the marvelous story 
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory_ 

Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer? 

2. How, erect, at the outermost gates 
Of the City Celestial he waits, 

With his feet on the ladder of light, 
That, crowded with angels unnumbered, 
By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered 

Alone in the desert at night? 

3. The Angels of Wind and of Fire 
Chant only one hymn, and expire 

With the song’s irresistible stress— 
Expire in their rapture and wonder, 

As harp-strings are broken asunder 

By music they throb to express. 

4. But serene in the rapturous throng, 
Unmoved by the rush of the song, 

With eyes unimpassioned and slow, 
Among the dead angels, the deathless, 
Sandalphon stands listening, breathless, 

To sounds that ascend from below— 

5. From the spirits on earth that adore, 

From the souls that entreat and implore 

In the fervor and passion of prayer; 

From the hearts that are broken with losses, 
And weary with dragging the crosses 

Too heavy for mortals to bear. 

With kind permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co, 



36 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


6. And he gathers the prayers as he stands, 

And they change into flowers in his hands, 

Into garlands of purple and red; 

And beneath the great arch of the portal, 
Through the streets of the City Immortal 
Is wafted the fragrance they shed. 

7. It is but a legend I know, 

A fable, ^phantom, a show, 

Of the ancient Rabbinical lore; 

Yet the old mediaeval tradition, 

The beautiful, strange superstition, 

But haunts me and holds me the more. 

8. When I look from my window at night, 

And the welkin above is all white, 

All throbbing and panting with stars, 

Among them, majestic, is standing 
Sandalphon, the angel, expanding 
His pinions in nebulous bars. 

9. And the legend, I feel, is a part 

Of the hunger and thirst of the heart— 

The frenzy and fire of the brain, 

That grasps at the fruitage forbidden, 

The golden pomegranates of Eden, 

To quiet its fever and pain. 

* As a pantomime, “Sandalphon” i9 rendered with great 
success by Miss Eugenia Williamson. 


THE FIRST VIEW OF THE HEAVENS. 

0. M. Mitchel. 

Often have I swept backward, in imagination, six 
thousand years, and stood beside our great ancestor, as 
he gazed for the first time upon the going down of the 




BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


37 


sun. What strange sensations must have swept 
through his bewildered mind, as he watched the last 
departing ray of the sinking orb, unconscious whether 
he should ever behold its return. 

Wrapped in a maze of thought, strange and startling, 
he suffers his eye to linger long about the point at 
which the sun had slowly faded from view. A mys¬ 
terious darkness creeps over the face of Nature; the 
beautiful scenes of earth are slowly fading, one by one, 
from his dimmed vision. 

A gloom deeper than that which covers earth steals 
across the mind of earth’s solitary inhabitant. He 
raises his inquiring gaze toward Heaven; and lo! a 
silver crescent of light, clear and beautiful, hanging in 
the western sky, meets his astonished gaze. The young 
moon charms his untutored vision, and leads him up¬ 
ward to her bright attendants, which are now stealing, 
one by one, from out the deep blue sky. The solitary 
gazer bows, wonders, and adores. 

The hours glide by; the silver moon is gone; the 
stars are rising, slowly ascending the heights of Heaven, 
and solemnly sweeping downward in the stillness of the 
night. A faint streak of rosy light is seen in the east; 
it brightens; the stars fade; the planets are extin¬ 
guished ; the eye is fixed in mute astonishment on the 
growing splendor, till the first rays of the returning sun 
dart their radiance on the young earth and its solitary 
inhabitant. 

The curiosity excited on this first solemn night, the 
consciousness that in the heavens God had declared His 
glory, the eager desire to comprehend the mysteries’ 
that dwell in their bright orbs, have clung, through the 


I 


\ 

38 BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 

long lapse of six thousand years, to the descendants of 
him who first watched and wondered. In this bound¬ 
less field of investigation human genius has won its 
most signal victories. 

Generation after generation has rolled away, age 
after age has swept silently by; but each has swelled, 
by its contributions, the stream of discovery. Myste¬ 
rious movements have been unraveled; mighty laws 
have been revealed; ponderous orbs have been weighed; 
one barrier after another has given way to the force of 
intellect; until the mind, majestic in its strength, has 
mounted, step by step, up the rocky height of its self- 
built pyramid, from whose star-crowned summit it looks 
out upon the grandeur of the universe, self-clothed with 
the prescience of a God. 


THE POWER OF HABIT. 

John B. Gough. 

I remember once riding from Buffalo to the Niagara 
Falls. I said to a gentleman: “What river is that, sir?” 

“That,” said he, “is Niagara River.” 

“Well, it is a beautiful stream,” said I; “bright and 
fair and glassy. How far off are the rapids?” 

“Only a mile or two,” was the reply. 

“Is it possible that, only a mile from us, we shall find 
the water in the turbulence which it must show near 
the falls?” 

“You will find it so, sir.” And so I found it; and 
the first sight of Niagara I shall never forget. 

Now, launch your bark on that Niagara River; it is 
bright, smooth, beautiful, and glassy. There is a ripple 
at the bow; the silver wake you leave behind adds to 



BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 


39 


your enjoyment. Down the stream you glide—oars, sails, 
and helm in proper trim—and you set out on your 
pleasure excursion. 

Suddenly someone cries out from the bank: “ Young 
men , ahoy /” 

“What is it?” • 

“The rapids are below you!” 

“Ha! ha! We have heard of the rapids; but we are 
not such fools as to get there. If we go too fast, then 
we shall up with the helm, and steer to the shore; we 
will set the mast in the socket, hoist the sail, and speed 
to the land. Then on, boys; don’t be alarmed—there 
is no danger.” 

“Young men , ahoy there!” 

“What is it?” 

“ The rapids are below you /” 

“Ha! ha! We will laugh and quaff; all things delight 
us. What care we for the future? No man ever saw 
it. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. We will 
enjoy life while we may—will catch pleasure as it flies. 
This is enjoyment; time enough to steer out of danger 
when we are sailing swiftly with the current.” 

“Young men, ahoy!” 

“What is it?” 

“Beware! beware! The rapids are below 
you!” 

Now you see the water foaming all around. See 
how fast you pass that point! Up with the helm! Now 
turn! Pullhard! Quick! quick! quick! Pull for your 
lives! Pull till the blood starts from your nostrils and 
the veins stand like whipcords upon your brow! Set 
the mast in the socket! hoist the sail! Ah ! ah! It is too 
late! Shrieking, howling, blaspheming, over they go. 


40 


BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 


Thousands go over the rapids of intemperance every* 
year, through the power of habit, crying all the while: 
“When I find out that it is injuring me, I will give it 

upr 


THE GREAT QUESTION. 

“ How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come!” 
The waves, they are wildly heaving 
And bearing me out from the shore, 

And I know of the things I am leaving, 

But not of the things before. 

O Lord of Love, whom the shape of a dove 
Came down and hovered o’er, 

Descend to-night with heavenly light 
And show me the farther shore. 

There is midnight darkness o’er me, 

And ’tis light, more light, I crave— 

The billows behind and before me 
Are gaping, each with a grave! 

Descend to-night, O Lord of might, 

Who died our souls to save; 

Descend to-night, my Lord, my Light, 

And walk with me on the wave! 

My heart is heavy to breaking 
Because of the mourners’ sighs, 

For they can not see the awak’ning, 

Nor the body with which we arise. 

Thou, who for sake of men didst break 
The awful seal of the tomb, 

Show them the way into life, I pray, 

And the body with which we come! 



BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


41 


Comfort their pain and pining 
For the nearly wasted sands, 

With the many mansions shining 
In the house not made with hands; 

And help them by faith to see through death 
To that brighter and better shore, 

Where they never shall weep who are fallen asleep, 
And never be sick any more. 


IMMORTALITY. 

Phillips Brocks. 

First of all I think of the immense and noble free¬ 
dom from many of the most trying and vexatious of 
our temptations which comes to a man to whom the 
curtain has been lifted, and the veil rent in twain. Let 
me fancy myself a man who has no vision beyond this 
world. Let me bow myself down and shut myself in, 
until all the thought of my life stops short and sharp 
there at the grave. I am going to work along here till 
when? Perhaps till to-morrow morning; perhaps till 
fifty years hence: what matters it? Certainly for a 
very minute of time, and then.it will be all over; what 
I do I must not only begin, I must finish here and now. 
All my desires—those deep, deep wishes that are in my 
soul because I am a man, the desire to accomplish some¬ 
thing, the desire to please, the desire to discover and 
display myself—all of these good desires, all of them 
parts of my humanity—they must all be satisfied before 
the curtain falls, or they can never find satisfaction; for 
that falling of the curtain is the end of all. What a 
coward I become! What a poor, timid, limited, tempo¬ 
rary thing! I must attempt nothing so large that I can 



42 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


not finish it before the sun goes down. I must desire 
nothing that this life can not bestow. If I want to 
please, whom shall I please? Only those cramped and 
crippled and half-judging men about me, to whom I 
must degrade myself to win their honor. If I want to 
make myself known, I must take this crude self which 
I am now, and hold it up, and make that self known; 
for it is “ now or never,” since the end may come at 
once. How superficial, restless, impatient! What a 
slave I come to be! Where is my independence? How 
the world has me down, and treads on me!—treads me 
into the dust and mire of the present, since I know no 
future world into which I can lift myself up, and run 
away. And now, beside me all the time, there is 
another man, and the difference between him and me is 
this: that he believes immortality. Somehow he has 
got hold of the truth of resurrection. To him death is 
a jar, a break, a deep, mysterious change, but not the 
end of life. I know that men may claim to believe 
that, and yet live on like dogs; men may claim to 
believe that, and yet be slaves and cowards. But this 
man really believes it; and see what it does for him. 
S.ee how free it makes him! How it breaks hi& tyran¬ 
nies! He can undertake works of self-culture, or the 
development of truth, far, far too vast for the earthly 
life of any Methuselah to finish, and yet smile calmly, 
and work on when men tell him that he will die before 
his work is done. Die! Shall not the sculptor sleep a 
hundred times before the statue he begins to-day is fin¬ 
ished, and wake a hundred times more, ready for his 
work, bringing with a hundred new mornings to his 
work the strength and the visions that have come to 


BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 


43 


him in his slumber? He can desire to please, and yet 
be perfectly patient as he waits for a “ well done that 
will fall on his ears out of Divine lips when this world 
and its shows are over. He can desire to show himself, 
and yet live in obscurity content, sure that some day— 
what does it matter when, to him who has eternity to 
live in?—God will call him, and bid men see in him the 
work of love and grace. Can you picture the independ¬ 
ence of a man like this? What are my temptations to 
him ? How he walks over them with feet that follow 
his far-seeing sight, like a man that strides with his firm 
steps and far-off sight, and never sees the pebble in the 
path, behind which a crawling insect is blocked and 
hindered! Sometimes, when one is traveling through a 
foreign country, it happens that he stops a day or two, 
a week or two, in some small village where everything 
is local, which has little communication with the out¬ 
side world; where the people are born and grow up, 
and grow old and die, without thinking of leaving their 
little nest among the mountains. The traveler shares 
for a little while their local life, shuts himself in to their 
limitations. But all the while he is freer than they are; 
he is not tyrannized over by the small prescriptions and 
petty standards that are despots to them. He knows of, 
and belongs to, a larger world. He is kept free by the 
sense of the world beyond the mountains, from which 
he came and to which he is going back again. And 
so, when a man, strong in the conviction of immortality, 
really counts himself a stranger and a pilgrim among 
the multitudes who know no home, no world but this, 
then he is free among them; free from the worldly 
tyrannies that bind them; free from their temptations 


44 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


to be cowardly and mean. The wall of death, beyond 
which they never look, is to him only a mountain that 
can be crossed, from whose top he shall see eternity, 
where he belongs. This is the freedom of the best 
childhood and the best old age, these two ends of life in 
which the sense of immortality is realest and most true. 


GOD BLESS OUR SCHOOL. 

About the room the Christmas greens 
In rich profusion hung, 

While sparkling in their gilded dress 
Those graceful vines among 
Were fitting mottoes wrought with care, 
Each with its wealth of good, 

And this of all that decked those walls 
The children’s favorite stood— 

“ God Bless Our School.” 

It glittered in the morning sun 
In characters of gold, 

As beautiful at noontide hour 

As Truth, that ne’er grows old. 

What though the storms were fierce without 
With low-hung clouds of gloom ? 

A halo crowned those sacred words— 

Its radiance filled the room— 

“ God Bless Our School.” 

Once to my side a fair young child 
Came with her eyes of blue, 

So full of light and innocence, 

Pure thoughts were there I knew. 

“ Teacher,” said she, “ I wonder so 



BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 

If it can really be, 

That God, who lives high up above, 

Looks down from heaven to see 
And bless our school?” 

Oh, what a fitting time to teach 
A sweet and holy truth, 

To leave its impress deep engraved 
Upon the mind of youth! 

I took the little hand in mine, 

Gazed in that childish face, 

And told how He, whose watchful love 
Abides in every place, 

Could bless our school. 

And how not e’en a sparrow’s fall, 

Not e’en a raven’s cry, 

Though small they seem, could e’er escape 
The notice of His eye. 

The child-face glowed with happy smiles. 

“ Ah! now I know,” said she, 

44 If God loves e’en the little birds, 

He surely cares for me 

And all our school.” 

O ye unto whose tender care 
These little ones are given, 

Spurn not the thoughtful questionings, 

But turn their hearts to Heaven; 

And when ye twine about your rooms 
The rich festoons of green, 

There place among those graceful vines 
These golden words to gleam—. 

44 God Bless Our School.” 


46 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


CHICAGO* 

Between the swelling oceans rise 
H er towering spires unto the skies, 

And countless throngs, in wild uproar, 

A multitude crowds on her shore. 

A peerless queen of wondrous might, 

Her splendor charms the stranger’s sight. 

In gorgeous glow of golden sheen, 

Agate and ivory decked within. 

Her granite palaces afar 
With lofty spire unto the stars 
Welcome the millions who doth come 
And shelter seek ’neath her broad dome. 

They come to mark the work of man, 

The nerve to move, the brain to plan, 

Which down the trend of centuries roll 
Unto America’s fair goal. 

From Asia’s wild, untrodden plain, 

From torrid India’s heated main, 

And Russia’s bleak and frozen shore, 

The serried hosts come evermore. 

From north, and south, and east, and^West, 

, From princely tower with golden crest, 

From northern shore of deep midnight, 

And treasured home of sunny light. 

Like boom of wild and swelling sea 
The murmur rises o’er the lea, 

Unmeasured in its sounding roar 

_ In billowy sweep from shore to shore. 

Mt* Yernon U Ind t0 thiS collectlon by the aut &or, Mrs. M. Alexander. 



BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS 

From Persia’s loom of wondrous art, 

From sculptured Rome, from Athens’ heart, 
From glowing France, and sunny Spain, 
From Europe’s towers across the main. 

A medley strange of human kind 
Mixes and mingles God’s great mind, 

With intellect bestowed on man 
Stupendous in His wondrous plan. 

They gather in a Babel throng 
With laugh, and jest, and mirth, and song, 
That echoes in melodious roar 
Along Chicago’s broad lake-shore. 

O wondrous city, grand and high 
(Heed evermore the helpless cry), 

And while vast earth her tributes bring, 

Hail Freedom ever as thy King. 


VALEDICTORY. 

Mollie E. Sanders . 

Days, months, and years are gliding 
Like mystic dreams away, 

And down life’s varied pathway 
Their lights and shadows play, 

And, often on the present, 

Reflected light will fall; 

Sometimes, perhaps, a. shadow 
Comes darkly over all. 

O time, still hasten onward, 

Unheed our smiles or tears, 

And gather in thy chariot 
Thy burden of the years. 

And with thy scythe, great reaper 
Reap all our treasures here, 



48 . 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


Though every sheaf thou bindest, 
Is dewed with many a tear. 

We bow to thy stern mandate, 
Acknowledging thy sway— 
Powerless alike to fetter, 

Or cause thy wheel to stay. 

For onward, ever onward, 

The years their way pursue, 
And season after season 
Still passes from our view. 

We tread the path before us, 
Impatient oft to raise 
The veil that hides the future 
From erring mortals’ gaze. 

We can not see the trials 

Around the paths we’ll try, 

Nor catch the hours of pleasure, 
That for us there may lie. 


TAKE CARE. 

Alice Cary . 

Little children, you must seek 
Rather to be good than wise; 

For the thoughts you do not speak 
Shine out your cheeks and eyes. 

If you think that you can be 
Cross or cruel, and long fair, 

Let me tell you how to see 
You are quite mistaken there. 

Go and stand before the glass 
And some ugly thought contrive, 



BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


49 


And my word will come to pass 
Just as sure as you’re alive! 

What you have and what you. lack, 
All the same as what you wear, 

You will see reflected back; 

So, my little folks, take care! 

And not onlyjn the glass 

Will your secrets come to view; 

All beholders, as they pass, 

Will perceive and know them too. 

Out of sight, my boys and girls, 
Every root of beauty starts; 

So think less about your curls— 
More about your heads and hearts. 

Cherish what is good, and drive 
Evil thoughts and feelings far; 

For, as sure as you’re alive, 

You will show for what you are. 


HANS BLEIMER. 

Isaac Hinton Brown. 

Hans Bleimer shtood by dot burning shkip 
Midt two hands on his mool; 

Der mool he shumped, Hans used his vip, 

Und called dot beasht a fool. 

Of course dot mool he vood not go, 

He vas schared so by dot fire; 

So Hans he hits dot mool a blow 
Dot raised its heel up higher. 

4 



So 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


Und shtill dot shtubborn mool shtood by, 

Mit his two feets out before; 

His eye vos vild, his tail vosh high, 

Vile round der flames did roar. 

Den Hans, he tinks dot game’s played out, 

So he dries some oder plan 

To dhrive dot shweet mool*uf dot shkip 
Und bring him safe by landt. 

Der man in der moon shmiled to de east, 

Und de stars midt fun vinked out; 

De vishes fildt dare teeth for a feast, 

Und Ha'ns Bleimer vendt his plans about. 

Den Hans he takes kwick off his coats, 

His face vos schared und bale, 

Und midt six hundred vicked oats, 

He vendt for dot schtrong mod’s dail. 

Den Mr. Mool vos so oxprised 

Midt Hans Bleimer in his rear 

Dot anger shone all oudt his eyes 
Und fidt vos in his ear. 

Six shumps! six kicks! Oh awful doom! 
Hans Bleimer vare vos he? 

Go shpeak by de man yot durns de moon— 
De vishes by de sea! 

Veil anyhow poor Hans hadt shweet revenge, 
So dite he helt above vot hit him 

Dot ven Hans left dis vicked vorld, 

Der best bai t uf dot dail vent mit him. 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


51 


THE UNITED ORDER OF HALF-SHELLS. 

“My vhife all der time says to me: ‘Carl Dunder, if 
you vhas to be kilt by a butcher-cart or ice-wagon, 
or if some shteamboat plow you oop on de river, I left 
mit no money. Vhy doan’ you pe insured mit your 
life?’ 

“Vhell, I tinks about dot a good deal. It vhas my 
duty dot my vhife und Katie doan’ go mit der poor- 
house if I can help it, und I tink it vhas pest to get 
some insurance. I shpeak to my frendt, Shon Plazes, 
vhas about tt, und Shon he says: 

“‘Of course you vhant insurance. You come into 
my lodge of der United Order of Half-Shells. Do 
vhas an order which only cost one dollar a year, und if 
you die your family puts on-shtyle mit der ten thousand 
dollar in greenpacks. I calls a meeting right avhay 
mit your saloon, und ve put you through like some 
streaks of greased lightning.’ 

“Vhell, I goes home und tells der old vhomans, und 
she says dot vhas O. K. She doan’adike to see me die; 
but if some shmall-pox or yellow fever comes to De¬ 
troit, und takes me avay, she likes to haf a long funeral 
procession, und build me a grave-stone vich reads dot 
Carl Dunder vhas a goot husband, a kind fadder, und 
dot he vhas gone to heaven only a leedle vhile before- 
he vhas ready. I shpeak to my daughter Katie, und 
she sheds some tears und dells me dot she looks as cute 
as an angel in some mourning gloze for me. So it vhas 
all right, und I sweep out my saloon, und about twenty 
men come in dot eafnings to make me a Half-Shell. 

“Oxcuse me if I vhas madt, und use some words like 
a pirate. My frendt, Shon Plazes, vhas dhere mit a red 


62 BROWN'S POPULAR REAPINGS. 

cap on his head, und a voice so solemn dot I feels chills 
go up my pack. He calls der meeting to ordei, und 
says I like to shoine and become a Half-Shell. 

“‘Does he like peer?’ asks some man in the gorner. 

“‘He does,’ said Shon Plazes. 

“‘Und so do we!’yells all der meeting, und Shon 
says I was to come down mit der peer. Dot was nine¬ 
teen glasses. 

“Den Shon Plazes, he reads from a pook mit a plue 
cover dot man vhas dying efery day so fast dot you 
can’t count ’em, or someding like dot, und he calls 
oudt: 

* “‘Vhat shall safe dis man?’ 

“Und eaferypody yells: ‘Lager peer!’ Dot means, I 
set him oop again, und dot vhas nineteen glasses more. 
Den two men take me und vhalk me all aroundt, und 
Shon Plazes he cries oudt: 

“‘Ve vhas here to-day and gone to-morrow! In der 
midnight, when eaferypody vhas ashleep, a tief comes 
und shteals our life away! Vhat keeps dot tief afar off?’ 

“Und eaferypody groans out like he vhas dying: 
‘Cool lager!’ Dot means I was to set’em oop again, 
und dot vhas nineteen glasses more. Den Shon Plazes 
he leads me twice around und says: 

“ ‘Carl Dunder, you tinks you vhas made a Half- 
Shell already, but you vhas mistaken. Put out your 
left handt. Dot vhas goot. Now, my frendt, vhat 
vas de foundation stone of liberty, equality, und brotec- 
tion?’ 

“Und eaferypody lifts oop his voice und groans out: 
-‘All der lager a man vhants!’ Dot means, I vhas to 
tap a fresh keg; und I belibve dot growd drinks more 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


53 


as forty glasses. I doan’ like it so previous like. I 
didn’t, but my frendt Shon Plazes he tells me to lie 
down on der table on my pack, und shut my eyes. 
Vhen I vhas in position he hit me three times mit his 
fist in der stomach und cries oudt: 

“‘Vhen he vhas alife he vhas kind mit der poor; 
vhen he vhas death, we forgot his faults. Brudders, 
vhat vhas der great brinciple dot leads to chasity and 
penevolence?’ 

“Und eaferybody shumps to his feet und yells out: 
‘Some more lager und cigars!’ Vhell, I set ’em oop 
once more, und den I vhas so madt dot I take my glub 
und clean dot growd oudt mit der street. I belief he 
vhas a fraud on me. I belief Shon Plazes tells all der 
poys, und it vhas a put-up shob. I lose my peer und 
cigars, und somepody carries off more as ten bottles of 
vhiskey from my par, und I vhas no more & Half-Shell 
as yoo are. If dot vhas some vhey to insure me so dat 
my vhife und Katie haf some mourning goods, und puy 
me a grave-stone mit a lamp on top, I go out of polly- 
tics right avay. Oxcuse me dot I shed some tears, und 
kick oafer der shairs und tables, for I vhas madt like 
some cats on a gloze-line.” 


A FRIEND OF THE FLY. 

With a fly-screen under one arm and a bundle of 
sticky fly-paper under the other, an honest agent entered 
a grocery store one day in the summer and said: “Why 
don’t you keep ’em out?” 

“Who vash dot?” asked the groceryman. 

“Why, the pesky flies. You’ve got ’em by the 



54 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


thousand in here, and the fly season has only begun. 
Shall I put fly-screens in the doors?” 

“What for?” 

“To keep the'flies out.” 

“Why should I keep der flies oudt? Flies like some 
shance to go aroundt und see der city de same ash 
agents. If a fly ish kept out on der street all der time 
he might ash vhell be a horse.” 

“Yes, but they are a great nuisance. I’ll put you up 
a screen door there for three dollars.” 

“Not any for me. If a fly vhants to come in here, 
und he behaves himself in a respectable manner, I have 
notings to say. If he don’t behave, I bounce him oudt 
pooty queek, und don’t he forget her.” 

“Well, try this fly-paper. Every sheet will catch 
five hundred flies.” 

“Who vhants to catch ’em?” 

“I do—you—everybody.” 

“I don’t see it like dot. If I put dot fly-paper on der 
counter somebody comes along und wipes his nose mit 
it, or somebody leans his elbow on her und vhalks off 
mit him. It would be shust like my boy Shake to 
come in und lick all der molasses off, to play a shoke on 
his fadder.” 

“Say, I’ll put down a sheet, and if it doesn’t catch 
twenty flies in five minutes I’ll say no more.” 

“If you catch twenty flies I have to pry ’em loose mit 
a stick und let ’em go, und dot vhas too much work. 
No, my agent friendt; flies must have a shance to get 
along und take some comfort. I vhas poor once myself, 
und I know all about it.” 

“I’ll give you seven sheets for ten cents.” 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 55 

“Oxactly, but I won’t do it. It looks to me like 
shmall beesness for a big agent like you to go around 
mit some confidence games to shwindle flies. A fly 
vhas born to be a fly, und to come into my shtore ash 
often ash he likes. When he comes I shall treat him 
like a shentleman. I gif him a fair show. I don’t keep 
an axe to knock him in der headt, und I don’t put some 
molasses all oafer a sheet of paper und coax him to 
come und be all stuck up mit his feet till he can’t fly 
away. You can pass along—I’m no such person like 
dot.” 


THE DUTCHMAN’S TELEPHONE. 

“I guess I haf to gif up my delephone already,” said 
an old citizen, as he entered the office of the company 
with a very long face. 

“Why, what’s the matter now?” 

“Oh! eferytings. I got dot delephone in mine house 
so I could spheak mit der poys in der saloon down 
town, und mit my relations in Springwells, but I haf to 
give it up. I never haf so much droubles.” 

“How?” 

“Vhell, my poy Shon, in der saloon, he rings der pell 
and calls me oop und says an old frend of mine vhants 
to see how she yorks. Dot ish all right. I say, ‘Hello!’ 
und he says ‘Come closer.’ I goes closer and helloes 
again. Den he says, ‘Shtand a little off.’ I shtands a 
little off und yells vunce more, und he says, ‘Shpeak 
louder.’ I yells louder. I goes dot vhay for ten 
minutes, und den he says: ‘Go to Texas, you old 
Dutchman!’ You see?” 

“Yes.” 



56 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


“Und den mein brudder in Springwells he rings der 
pell und calls me oop and says, how I vhas dis eafnings? 
I says I vhas feeling like some colts, und he says: ‘Who 
vhants to puy some goats?’ I says: ‘Colts—colts— 
colts!’ und he answers: ‘Oh! coats. I thought you 
said goats!’ Vhen I goes to ask him ef he feels petter 
I hear a voice crying out: ‘Vhat Dutchman is dot on dis 
line?’ Den somepody answers: ‘I doan’ know,but I likes 
to punch his headt!’ You see?” 

“Yes.” 

“Vhell, somedimes, my vife vhants to spheak mit me 
vhen I am down in der saloon. She rings mein pell- 
und I says: ‘Hello!’ Nobody shpeaks to me. She rings 
again, und I says: ‘Hello,’ like thunder! Den der Cen¬ 
tral Office tells me to go aheadt, und den tells me holdt 
on, und den tells mein vhife dot I am gone avhay. I 
yells oudt: ‘Dot ish not so,’ und somepody says: ‘How 
can I talk if dot old Dutchmans doan’ keep shtill ?’ You 
see?” 

“Yes.” 

“Und vhen I gets in bedt at night, somepody rings 
der pell like der house vas on fire, und vhen I shumps 
oudt und says hello, I hear somepody saying: ‘Kaiser, 
doan’ you vhant to puy a dog?’ I vhants no dog, und 
vhen I tells ’em so, I hear some peoples laughing: 
‘Haw! haw! haw!’ You see?” 

“Yes.” 

“Und so you take it oudt, und vhen somepody likes 
to shpeak mit me dey shall come right avay to mein 
saloon. Oof my brudder ish sick he 'shall get better, 
und if somebody vhants to puy me a dog, he shall come 
vhere I can punch him mit a glub.” 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


57 


MARY’S LAMB WITH VARIATIONS. 

Mollie had a little lamb as black as rubber shoe, 

And everywhere that Mollie went he emigrated to. 

He went with her to church one day; the folks hilarious 
grew, 

To see him walk demurely into Deacon Allen’s pew. 

The worthy deacon quickly let his angry passions rise, 

And gave it an unchristian kick between the sad, brown 
eyes. 

This landed lammy in the aisle; the deacon followed fast, 

And raised his foot again; alas! that first kick was his last. 

For Mr. Sheep walked slowly back about a rod, ’tis said, 

And ere the deacon could retreat he stood him on his head. 

The congregation then arose, and went for that ’ere 
sheep; 

Several well-directed butts just piled them in a heap. 

Then rushed they straightway for the door, with curses 
long and loud; 

While lammy struck the hindmost man, and shoved 
him through the crowd. 

The minister had often heard that kindness would subdue 

The fiercest beast. “Aha!” he said, “I’ll try that game 
on you.” 

And so he kindly, gently called: “Come, lammy, lammy, 
lamb; 

To see the folks abuse you so, I grieved and sorry am.” 

With kind and gentle words he came from that tall 
pulpit down, 

Saying: “Lammy, lammy, lamb; best sheepy in the 
town.” 

The lamb quite dropped its humble air, and rose from 
off its feet; 


58 


BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 


And when the parson landed, he was behind the 
hindmost seat. 

As he shot out the door, and closed it with a slam, 

A gentle smile stole o’er the face of Mollie’s little lamb. 


BROTHER WATKINS. 

[A capital story as told by John B. Gough. When well rendered, it 
never fails to “bring down the house.” Employ a sing-song, old- 
fashioned preacher’s style, increasing in vehemence and extrava¬ 
gance to the last. A Southern divine, who had removed to a new 
field of labor, gave his new flock, on the first day of his ministra¬ 
tion, some reminiscences of his former charge, as follows:] 

“My beloved brethering, before I take my text I 
must tell you about my parting with my old congrega¬ 
tion. On the morning of last Sabbath I went into the 
meeting-house to preach my farewell discourse. Just in 
front of me sot the old fathers and mothers in Israel; 
the tears coursed down their furrowed cheeks; their 
tottering forms and quivering lips breathed out a sad—> 
fare ye well, brother Watkins — ah! Behind them sot 
the middle-aged men and matrons; health and vigor 
beamed from every countenance; and as they looked 
up I could see in their dreamy eyes— -fare ye well , 
brother Watkins—ah ! Behind them sot the boys and 
girls that I had gathered into the Sabbath school. 
Many times had they been rude and boisterous, but 
now their merry laugh was hushed, and in the silence I 
could hear— -fare ye well , brother Watkins — ah! 
Around on the back seats and in the aisles stood and 
sot the colored brethering, with their black faces and 
honest hearts, and as I looked upon them I could see a 



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59 


—fare ye well, brother Watkins—ah ! When I had 
finished my discourse and had shaken hands with all 
the male and female brethering—ah!—I passed out to 
take a last look at the old church—ah! The broken 
steps, the flopping blinds, and moss-covered roof sug¬ 
gested only— fare ye well, brother Watkins — ah! I 
mounted my old gray mare, with my earthly possessions 
in my saddle-bags, and as I passed down the street the 
servant-girls stood in the doors, and with their brooms 
waved me a —fareye well, brother Watkins — ah! As 
1 passed out of the village the low wind blew softly 
through the waving branches of the trees, and moaned 
—fare ye well, brother Watkins — ah! I came down 
to the creek, and, as the old mare stopped to drink, I 
could hear the water rippling over the pebbles a— 
fare ye well, brother Watkins—ah! And even the 
little fishes, as their bright fins-glistened in the sunlight, 
I thought, gathered around to say, as best they could— 
fare ye well, brother Watkins—ah! I was slowly 
passing up the hill, meditating upon the sad vicissitudes 
and mutations of life, when suddenly out bounded a big 
hog from a fence-corner, with aboo! aboo! and I came 
to the ground with my saddle-bags by my side. As I 
lay in the dust of the road, my old gray mare run up 
the hill, and as she turned the top she waved her tail 
back at me, seemingly to say —fare ye well, brother 
Watkins — ah! I tell you, my brethering, it is affect¬ 
ing times to part with a congregation you have been 
with for over thirty years—ah!” 


60 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


LITTLE BREECHES. 

John Hay. 

(A Pike County View of Special Providence.') 

I don’t go much on religion, 

I never ain’t had no show; 

But I’ve got a middlin’ tight grip, Sir, 

On the handful of things I know. 

I don’t pan out on the prophets, 

And free-will and that sort of thing; 

But I b’lieve in God and the angels, 

Ever since one night last spring. 

I come into town with some turnips, 

And my little Gabe came along— 

No four-year-old in the country 

Could beat him for pretty and strong, 

Peart and chipper and sassy, 

Always ready to swear and fight— 

And I’d larnt him to chew terbacker, 

Jest to keep his milk-teeth white. 

The snow came down like a blanket 
As I passed by Taggart’s store; 

I went in for a jug of molasses, 

And left the team at the door. 

They skeered at something and started— 

I heerd one little squall, 

And hell-to-split over the prairie 

Went team, Little Breeches, and all. 

Hell-to-split over the prairie! 

1 was almost froze with skeer, 

But we roused up some torches, 

And sarched for ’em far and near. 


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At last we struck hosses and wagon, 
Snowed under a soft white mound, 

Upsot, dead beat—but of little Gabe 
No hide nor hair was found. 

And here all hope soured on me, 

Of my fellow critters’ aid— 

I just flopped down on my marrow-bones, 
Crotch-deep in the snow, and prayed. 
***** 

By this the torches was played out, 

And me and Isrul Parr 
Went off for some wood to a sheep-fold 
That he said was somewhar thar. 

We found it at last, and a little shed 

Whar they shut up the lambs at night; 
We looked in, and seen them huddled thar, 
So warm and sleepy and white. 

And thar sot Little Breeches, and chirped. 
As peart as ever you see: 

“ I want a chaw of terbacker, 

And that’s what’s the matter of me.” 

How did he get thar? Angels— 

He could never have walked in that storm 
They just scooped down and toted him 
To whar it was safe and warm. 

And I think that saving a little child 
And bringing him to his own 
Is a derned sight better business 
Than loafing around the Throne. 


62 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


MISS MALONEY GOES TO THE DENTIST. 

Anonymous. 

Sure, and did I tell yez how I wint to the dintist yis- 
terday ? Be aisy now, will yez, and wait a bit, and I’ll 
tell yez all about it. Says I: “Och docthur, docthur 
dear, it’s me tooth that aches intirely, sure it is, an’ I’ve 
a mind to have it drawn out, av ye plaze, sur.” “Does 
it hurt ye?” says he till me. “Och, murther, can ye ax 
me that, now, an’ me all the way down here to see yez 
about it?” says I. “Sure I haven’t slept day or night 
these three days. Bedad, haven’t I tried all manes to 
quiet the jumpin’ torment? Sure didn’t they tell me to 
put raw whiskey intil me mouth, but would it stay 
there, jist tell me now? No, the niver a bit could I 
kape it up in my mouth, though it’s far from the likes 
o’ me to be dhrinkin’ the whiskey widout extrame 
provocation, or by accidint.” So thin the docthur took 
his iron instruments in a hurry, wid as little consarn- 
ment of mind as Barney would swape the knives an’ 
forks from the table. 

“Be aisy, docthur,” says I;“there’s time enough; sure 
you’ll not be in such a hurry,” says I, “whin your time 
comes, I’m thinkin’.” “Och, well,” says the docthur, 
“an’ av yez not ready now, Miss Maloney, ye may come 
on the morrow.” “Indade, docthur, I’ll not sthir from 
this sate wid this ould dead tooth alive in me jaw, so 
ye may jist prepare; but ye nade not come slashin’ at a 
poor Christian body as av ye would wring her neck off 
first, an’ dhraw her tooth at yez convaynience mebbe a • 
quarther of an hour or so aftherward. 

“Now clap on yer pinchers, bad luck to them, but 
mind ye git hould av the right one—sure, you may 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 63 

aisily see it by the achin’ an’ jumpin’,” says I. “Och,” 
says he, “I’ll git hould av the right one,” and wid that 
he jabs a small razor-lookin’ weapon intil me mouth an’ 
cuts up me gooms as av it was nothin’ but cowld mate 
for hash for breakfast. Says I: “Docthur, thunder an’ 
turf!” for my mouth was full of blood, “fwhat in the 
divil are ye after? D’ye want to make an anatomy av 
a livin’ craythur, ye grave-robber, ye?” says I. “Sit 
sthill, says he, jamming something like a corkscrew 
intil me jowl, an’ twistin’ the very sowl out av me. 
Sure I sat still, bekase the murtherin’ thafe held me 
down wid his knee an’ the gripe of his iron in me lug. 
If you’ll belave me the worrest of all was whin he gave 
an awful wring, hard enough to wring a wet blankit as 
dhry as gunpowdher. Arrah! didn’t I think the judg- 
mint day had come till me? Holy fathers! may I niver 
brathe another breath if I didn’t see the red fire in the 
pit! Sure I felt me head fly off me shoulders, an’ 
lookin’ up, saw somethin’ monstrous bloody in the 
docthur’s wrenchin’ iron. “Is that me head ye have 
got thare?” says I? “No, it’s only your tooth,” says 
he. “You lie,” says I. “God bliss you,” says he. 
“May be it is me tooth,” says I, as me eyes began to 
open, an’ by puttin’ me hand up, troth I found the 
outside av me face on, tho’ I felt as if all the inside had 
been hauled out,.barrin’ the jumpin’ pain in the tooth, 
which had grown to fill the gap. 

Och! may the divil take the tooth, an’ the bad luck 
too, if I iver think av it any more. Sure, I’ve had 
enough of its company, bad cess to the little thafe! 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS . 


04 


I VASH SO GLAD I VASH HERE. 

One who does not believe in immersion for baptism 
was holding a protracted meeting, and one night 
preached on the subject of baptism. In the course of 
his remarks he said that some believe it necessary to go 
down into the water, and come up out of it, to be 
baptized. But this he claimed to be fallacy; for the 
preposition “ into ” of the Scripture should be rendered 
differently, as it does not mean into at all times. 
“ Moses,” he said, “we are told, went up into the mount¬ 
ain; and the Savior was taken up into a high mountain, 
etc. Now, we do not suppose either went into a mount¬ 
ain, but went unto it. So with going down into the 
water: it means simply going down close by or near to 
the water, and being baptized in the ordinary way by 
sprinkling or pouring.” He carried this idea out fully, 
and in due season closed his discourse, when an invita¬ 
tion was given for anyone so disposed to rise and 
express his thoughts. Quite a number of his brethren 
arose and said they were glad they had been present on 
this occasion, that they were well pleased with the 
sound sermon they had just heard, and felt their souls 
greatly blessed. Finally, a corpulent gentleman of 
Teutonic extraction, a stranger to all, arose and broke 
the silence that was almost painful, as follows: 

“Mister Breacher, I is so glad I vash here to-night, 
for I has had explained to my mint some dings dat I 
neffer could pelief before. Oh, I ish so glad dat into 
does not mean into at all, but shust close by or near to; 
for now I can pelief many dings vot I could not pelief 
pefore. W e read, Mr. Breacher, dat Taniel vash cast 
into de ten of lions, and came out alife. Now I neffer 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


65 


could pelief dat, for wilet peasts would shust eat him 
right off ; but now it is fery clear to my mint he was 
shust close py or near to, and tid not get into de ten at 
all. Oh, I ish so glad I vash here tonight! Again, we 
reat dat de Heprew children vash cast into de firish fur¬ 
nace, and dat always look like a peeg story too, for 
they would have been purnt up; but it ish all blain to 
my mint now, for dey vash shust cast py or close to de 
firish furnace. Oh, I vash so glad I vash here to-night! 
And den, Mr. Breacher, it ish said dat Jonah vash cast 
into de sea, and taken into de whale’s pelly. Now I 
neffer could pelief dat. It always seemed to me to be a 
peeg fish story, but it is all blain to my mint now. He 
vash not into de whale’s pelly at all, but shump onto his 
pack and rode ashore. Oh, I vash so glad I vash here 
to-night! 

“And now, Mr. Breacher, if you will shust exblain 
two more bassages of Scriptures, I shall be oh, 
so happy dat I vash here to-night. One of them ish 
vere it saish de vicked shall be cast into a lake dat burns 
mit fire and primstone alwish. Oh, Mr. Breacher, 
shall I be cast into dat lake if I am vicked, or shust 
close py or near to—shust near enough to pe comfort¬ 
able? Oh, I hope you tell me I shall be cast only shust 
py a good vays off, and I vill pe so glad I vash here to¬ 
night. De oder Bassage is dat vich saish, blessed are 
day who do dese commandments, dat dey may hafe 
right to de dree of life, and enter in droo de gates of de 
city, and not shust close py or near to—shust near 
enough to see vat I hafe lost—and I shall pe so glad I 
vash here to-night!” 


5 


66 BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS . 

SHE HAD BUSINESS WITH THE BOSS MASON. 

A middle-aged lady, with a black alpaca, dress worn 
shiny at the elbows, and a cheap shawl, and a cheap 
bonnet, and her hands puckered up and blue, as though 
she had just got her washing out, went into the office 
of a prominent Mason a few mornings since, and took a 
chair. She wiped her nose and the perspiration from 
her face on a blue-checked apron, and when the Mason 
looked at her, with an interested, brotherly look, as 
though she was in trouble, she said: 

“Are you the Boss Mason?” 

He blushed, told her he was a Mason, but not the 
highest in the land. 

She hesitated a moment, fingered the corner of her 
apron, and curled it up like a boy speaking a piece in 
school and asked: 

“Have you taken the whole two hundred and thirty- 
three degrees in Masonry ?” 

The man laughed, and told her there were only thirty- 
three degrees, and that he had taken thirty-two. The 
other degree could only be taken by a very few who 
were recommended by the Grand Lodge, and they had 
to go to New York to get the thirty-third degree. 

The lady studied a minute, unpinned the safety-pin 
that held her shawl together, and put it in her mouth, 
took a long breath and said: 

“Where does my husband get the other two hundred 
degrees then?” 

The prominent Mason said he guessed her husband 
never got two hundred degrees, unless he had a degree 
factory. He said he didn’t understand the lady. 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


67 


“Does my husband have to sit up with a corpse three 
nights a week ?” she asked, her eyes flashing fire. “Do 
you keep a lot of sick Masons on tap for my husband 
to sit up with the other three nights?” 

The prominent Mason said he was thankful that few 
Masons died, and only occasionally was one sick enough 
to call for Masonic assistance. When a Mason was sick 
and away from home, or when his family desired it, the 
brethren were only too glad to sit up with him, but there 
jvere.so many Masons, and so few sick, that it was only 
once in two or three months that a brother was called 
upon to sit up with anybody. 

“But why do you ask these questions, madam?” said 
the prominent Mason. 

The woman picked the fringe of her shawl, hung her 
head down, and said: 

“Well, my husband began to join the Masons about 
two years ago, and he has been taking degrees or sitting 
up with people every night since, and he comes home 
at all times of the night, smelling of beer and cheese. I 
thought at first that the smell was the result of his going 
to the morgue to help carry brother Masons home after 
they had been found in the river. He has come home 
twice with the wrong hat and coat on, and when I asked 
him how it was he said it was a secret he could not reveal, 
under penalty of being shot with a cannon. All he 
would say was that he took a degree. I have kept track 
of it a little, and I figure that he has taken two hundred 
and thirty-three degrees, including the grand Sky Fugle 
degree, which he took the night he came home with his 
lip cut and*his ear hanging by a piece of skin.” 


68 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


“Oh, madam,” said the prominent Mason; “there is 
no Sky Fugle degree in Masonry. Your husband has 
lied to you.” 

“That’s what I think,” said she, as a baleful light 
appeared in her eye. “He said he was taking the Sky 
Fugle degree, and fell through the skylight. I had 
him sewed up, and he was ready for more degrees. 
After he had taken, I should think, about a hundred 
and fifty degrees, I told him I should think he would 
let up on it and put some potatoes in the cellar for 
winter, but he said when a man once got started on the 
degrees he had to take them all or he didn’t amount to 
anything. One time I wanted a hat to wear to church, 
with a feather on it, and he said feathers were all non¬ 
sense; but the next day he brought home a leather case 
with a felt coal scuttle in it, and a feather on it that 
couldn’t have cpst less than ten dollars, the way I figure 
millinery. And when he put it on, and I laughed at 
his ridiculous apperance, he began to throw his arms 
around. He must have spent a fortune on the last hun¬ 
dred and fifty degrees. 

“One morning he came home with his coat-tail split 
right up the back, and his pants torn, just as though a 
dog had chewed him, and one ej^e closed up, and a wad 
of hair pulled right out of his head, and he said that he 
had been taking the two hundredth degree, but he 
wouldn’t tell me how it happened, because it was a 
dead secret. Sometimes a brother Mason comes home 
with him along in the morning, and they talk about a 
‘full flush,’ and they both act full as they stand on the 
steps and talk about their ‘pat hands,’ and ‘raisin’ ’em 
out,’ and ‘calling,’and ‘bob-tail flush.’ One night, when 


BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 


69 


he was asleep, I heard him whisper ‘I raise you ten 
dollars,’ and when I asked him what it meant he said 
that they had been raising a purse for a poor widow. 
Another time he raised up in bed, after he had been 
asleep, and shouted, ‘I stand pat,’ and when I asked 
him what he meant he said he was ruined if I told of 
it. He said he had spoken the password, and if the 
brethren heard of it they would put him out of the way, 
even as Morgan was put out of the way. Mister, is ‘I 
stand pat’your password?” 

The Mason told her it was not, that the words she 
had spoken were an expression used by men when 
playing draw poker, and he added that he didn’t believe 
her husband was a Mason at all, but that he had been 
lying to her all these years. 

She sighed and said: 

“That’s what I thought when he came home with a 
lot of ivory chips in his pocket. He said they used 
them at the lodge to vote on candidates, and that a 
white chip elects and a blue chip rejects a candidate. 
If you will look the matter up and see if he has joined 
the Masons, I will be obliged to you. He says he has 
taken all the two hundred and thirty-three degrees, and 
now the boys want him to join the Knights of Pythias. 
I want to get out an injunction to prevent him from 
joining anything else until we get some u nderclothes 
for winter. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. The next time 
he says anything about the Sky Fugle degrees I will 
take a wash-board and make him think there is one 
degree in Masonry that he has skipped. And now 
good-bye! You have comforted me greatly, and I will 
lay awake to-night until my husband comes from the 


70 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


Lodge with his pat hand, and I will make him think 
he has forgot his ante.” 

The lady went out to a grocery to buy some bar soap, 
and the prominent Mason resumed his business with a 
feeling that we are not all truly good and there is 
cheating going on all around. 


SHE WOULD BE A MASON. 

The funniest story I ever heard, 

The funniest thing that ever occurred, 

Is the story of Mrs. Mehitable Byrde, 

Who wanted to be a Mason. 

Her husband, Tom Byrde, is a Mason true, 

As good a Mason as any of you. 

He is Tiler of Lodge Cerulean Blue, 

And tiles and delivers the summons due, 

And she wanted to be a Mason, too— 

The ridiculous Mrs. Byrde. 

She followed him round, this inquisitive wife, 

And nabbed him and teased him half out of his life; 
So, to terminate this unhallowed strife, 

He consented at last to admit her. 

And first, to disguise her from bonnet and shoon, 
This ridiculous lady resolved to put on 
His breech—ah! forgive me—I mean pantaloons; 
And miraculously did they fit her. 

The Lodge was at work in the Masters’ Degree; 
The light was ablaze on the letter G; 

'High soared the pillars J and B; 



BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 

The officers sat like Solomon, wise; 

The brimstone burned amid horrid cries; 

The goat roamed wildly through the room; 
The candidate begged ’em to let him go home, 
And the devil himself stood up in the Mast 
As proud as an alderman at a feast— 

When in came Mrs. Byrde. 

Oh, horrible sound! Oh, horrible sight! 

Can it be that Masons take delight 
In spending thus the hours of night? 

Ah! could their wives and daughters know 
The unutterable things they say and do, 

Their feminine hearts would burst with woe. 
But this is not all my story. 

For those Masons joined in a hideous ring, 

The candidate howling like everything, 

And thus in tones of death they sing 

(The candidate’s name was Morey): 
“Blood to drink and bones to crack; 

Skulls to smash and lives to take; 

Hearts to crush and souls to burn; 

Give old Morey another turn, 

And make him all grim and gory.” 

Trembling with horror stood Mrs. Byrde, 

Unable to speak a single word 

She staggered and fell in the nearest chair, 

On the left of the Junior Warden there, 

And scarcely noticed, so loud the groans, 

That the chair was made of human bones. 

Of human bones! On grinning skulls 
That ghastly throne of horror rolls. 


72 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


Those skulls, the skulls that Morgan bore; 

Those bones, the bones that Morgan wore; 

His scalp across the top was flung; 

His teeth around the arms were strung— 

Never in all romance were known 
Such uses made of human gore. 

The brimstone glared in lurid flame, 

Just like a place we will not name; 

Good angels, that inquiring came 
From blissful courts, looked up in shame 
And tearful melancholy. 

Again they dance, but twice as bad; 

They jump and sing like demons mad— 

The tune is Hunkey-Dorey. 

(Blood to drink, etc., etc.) 

Then came a pause—a pair of paws 
Reached through the doors, up-sliding doors, 

And grabbed the unhappy candidate! 

How can I, without tears, relate 
The lost and ruined Morey’s fate? 

She saw him sink in a fiery hole; 

She heard him scream: “ My soul! my soul!” 
While roars of fiendish laughter roll, 

And drown the yells of mercy! 

(Blood to drink, etc., etc.) 

The ridiculous woman could stand no more, 

She fainted and fell on the checkered floor, 
’Midst all the diabolical roar. 

What then, you ask me, did befall 
'Mehitable Byrde? Why, nothing at all— 

She dreamed that she’d been in the Masons’ hall. 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS . 


73 


UNCLE DANIEL’S APPARITION. 

[The following, from “The Gilded Age,” by Mark Twain (Samuel 
L. Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner, represents a family emi¬ 
grating from Eastern Tennessee into Missouri. The subjects of this 
sketch had never before been out of sight of “The Knobs of East 
Tennessee.”] 

Whatever the lagging, dragging journey may have 
been to the rest of the emigrants, it was a wonder and 
delight to the children, a world of enchantment; and 
they believed it to be peopled with the mysterious 
dwarfs and giants and goblins that figured in the tales 
the negro slaves were in the habit of telling them 
nightly by the shuddering light of the kitchen fire. 

At the end of nearly a week of travel the party went 
into camp near a shabby village which was caving, 
house by house, into the hungry Mississippi. The river 
astonished the children beyond measure. Its mile- 
breadth of water seemed an ocean to them, in the 
shadowy twilight, and the vague riband of trees on the 
farther shore the verge of a continent which surely 
none but they had ever seen before. 

“Uncle Dan’l” (colored), aged 40; his wife, “Aunt 
Jinny,” aged 30; “Young Miss” Emily Hawkins, 
“Young Mars” Washington Hawkins, and “Young 
Mars” Clay, the new membei of the family, ranged 
themselves on a log, after supper, and contemplated the 
marvelous river and discussed it. The moon rose and 
sailed aloft through a maze of shredded cloud-wreaths; 
the somber river just perceptibly brightened under the 
veiled light; a deep silence pervaded the air and was 
emphasized, at intervals, rather than broken, by the 
hooting of an owl, the baying of a dog, or the muffled 
crash of a caving bank in the distance. 


74 BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 

The little company assembled on the log were all 
children (at least in simplicity and broad and compre¬ 
hensive ignorance), and the remarks they made about 
the river were in keeping with their character; and so 
awed were they by the grandeur and the solemnity of 
the scene before them, and by their belief that the air 
was filled with invisible spirits and that the faint 
zephyrs were caused by their passing wings, that all 
their talk took to itself a tinge of the supernatural, and 
their voices were subdued to a low and reverent tone. 
Suddenly Uncle Dan’l exclaimed: 

“ Chil’en, dah’s sumfin a cornin’! ” 

All crowded close together and every heart beat 
faster. Uncle Dan’l pointed down the river with his 
bony finger. 

A deep, coughing sound troubled the stillness, way 
toward a wooded cape that jutted into the stream a mile 
distant. All in an instant a fierce eye of fire shot out 
from behind the cape and sent a long brilliant pathway 
quivering athwart the dusky water. The coughing 
grew louder and louder, the glaring eye grew larger 
and still larger, glared wilder and still wilder. A huge 
shape developed itself out of the gloom, and from its 
tall, duplicate horns dense volumes of smoke, starred 
and spangled with sparks, poured out and went tum¬ 
bling away into the farther darkness. Nearer and nearer 
the thing came, till its long sides began to glow with 
spots of light, which mirrored themselves in the river 
and attended the monster like a torch-light procession. 

“ What is it? Oh, what is it, Uncle Dan’l?” 

With deep solemnity the answer came: 

“It’s de Almighty! Git down on yo’ knees!” 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


75 


It was not necessary to say it twice. They were all 
kneeling in a moment. And then while the myste¬ 
rious coughing rose stronger and stronger, and the 
threatening glare reached farther and wider, the negro’s 
voice lifted up its supplications: 

“ O Lord, we’s ben mighty wicked, an’ we knows 
dat we ’zerve to go to de bad place; but good Lord, 
deah Lord, we ain’t ready yit, we ain’t ready—let dese 
po’ chil’en hab one mo’ chance—jes’ one mo’ chance. 
Take de ole niggah if you’s got to hab somebody. 
Good Lord, good ,deah Lord, we don’t know whah 
you’s a-gwine to, we don’t know who you’s got yo’eye 
on, but we knows by de way you’s a-comin’, we knows 
by de way you’s a tiltin’ along in yo’ charyot o’ fiah 
dat some po’ sinner’s a-gwyne to ketch it. But good 
Lord, dese chil’en don’t b’long heah; dey’s f’m Obeds- 
town, whah dey don’t know nuffin, an’ you knows, yo’ 
own sef, dat dey‘"ain’t ’sponsible. An’ deah Lord, good 
Lord, it ain’t like yo’ mercy, it ain’t like yo’ pity, it ain’t 
like yo’ long-sufferin’ lovin’-kindness for to take dis kind 
o’ ’vantage o’ sich little chil’en as dese is when dey’s so 
many ornery grown folks chuck full o’ cussedness dat 
wants roastin’ down dah. O Lord, spah de little 
chil’en, don’t tar de little chil’en away f’m dey frens, 
jes’ let ’em off jes’ dis once, and take it out’n de ole 
niggah. Heah I is, Lord— heah I is! De ole 

niggah’s ready, Lord, de ole-” 

The flaming and churning steamer was right abreast 
the party, and not twenty steps away. The awful 
thunder of a mud-valve suddenly burst forth, drowning 
the prayer, and as suddenly Uncle Dan’l snatched a 
child under each arm and scoured into the woods with 


76 BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 

the rest of the pack at his heels. And then, ashamed of 
himself, he halted in the deep darkness and shouted 
(but rather feebly): 

Heah I is, Lord; heah I is! ” 

There was a moment of throbbing suspense, and 
then, to the surprise and comfort of the party, it was 
plain that the august presence had gone by, for its 
dreadful noises were receding. Uncle Dan’l headed a 
cautious reconnaissance in the direction of the log. 
Sure enough, “the Lord” was just turning a point a 
short distance up the river, and while they looked the 
lights winked out and the coughing diminished by 
degrees and presently ceased altogether. 

“ H’wsh! Well, now dey’s some folks says dey ain’t 
no ’ficiency in prah. Dis chile would like to know 
whah we’d a ben now if it warn’t fo’ dat prah? Dat’s 
it! Dat’s it!” 

“ Uncle Dan’l, do you reckon it was the prayer that 
saved us?” said Clay. 

“Does I reckon? Don’t I know it! Whah was yo’ 
eyes? Warn’t de Lord jes’ a-comin’ chow! chow! 
chow! an’ a-goin’ on turrible—an’ do de Lord carry 
on dat way ’dout dey’s sumfin don’t suit him? An’ 
warn’t he a-lookin’ right at dis gang heah, an’ warn’t 
he jes’ a-reachin’ for em? An’ d’you spec’ he’s gwyne 
to let ’em off ’dout somebody ast him to do it? No, 
indeedy!” 

“Do you reckon He saw us, Uncle Dan’l?” 

“De law sakes, chile, didn’t I see Him a-lookin’ at us?” 

“Did you feel scared, Uncle Dan’l?” 

“Afo, sah! When a man is ’gaged in prah, he ain’t 
fraid o’ nuffin—dey can’t nuffirl tetch him,” 


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77 


“WeU what did you run for?” 

“Well, I—I—Mars Clay, when a man is under de 
influence ob de spirit, he do-no what he’s ’bout—no sah; 
dat man do-no what he’s ’bout. You mout take an’tah 
de head off’n dat man an’ he wouldn’t scasely fine it 
out. Dah’s de Hebrew chil’en dat went frough de fiah; 
dey was burnt considable —ob coase dey was; but dey 
didn’t know nuffin’ ’bout it—heal right up agin; if dey’d 
ben gals dey’d missed dey long haah (hair), maybe, 
but dey wouldn’t felt de burn.” 

“/don’t know but what they were girls. I think they 
were.” 

“Now Mars Clay, you knows better’n dat. Some¬ 
times a body can’t tell whedder you’s a sayin’ what you 
means or whedder you’s a sayin’ what you don’t mean, 
’case you says ’em bofe de same way.” 

“But how should / know whether they were boys or 
girls?” 

“Goodness sakes, Mars Clay, don’t de good book 
say? ’Sides, don’t it call ’em de Zfe-brew chil’en? If 
dey was gals wouldn’t dey be de she-brew chil’en? 
Some people dat kin read don’t ’pear to take no notice 
whfen dey do read.” 

“Well, Uncle Dan’l, I think that- My! here 

comes another one up the river! There can’t be two!” 

“We gone-dis time—we done gone dis time, sho’! 
Dey aint two, Mars Clay—dat’s de same one. De Lord 
kin ’pear ebery whah in a second. Goodness, how de 
fiah and de smoke do belch up! Dat mean business, 
honey. He cornin’ now like He fo’got sumfin. Come 
’long, chil’en; time you’s gwyne to roos’. Go ’long wid 
you—ole Uncle Dan’l gwyne out in de woods to rastle 



BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 


IS 

in prah—de ole niggah gwyne to do what he kin to 
sabe you agin.” 

He did go to the woods and pray; hut he went so far 
that he doubted, himself, if the Lord heard him when 
He went by. 


GHOSTS. 

T. Be Witt Talmage. 

We never met but one ghost in all our life. It was 
a very dark night, and we were seven years of age. 
There was a German cooper, who, on the outskirts of 
the village, had a shop. It was an interesting spot, and 
we frequented it. There was a congregation of barrels, 
kegs, casks, and firkins that excited our boyish admira¬ 
tion. There the old man stood, day after day, hammer¬ 
ing away at his trade. He was fond of talk, and had 
his head full of all that was weird, mysterious, and 
tragic. During the course of his life he had seen almost 
as many ghosts as firkins; had seen them in Germany, 
on the ocean, and in America. 

One summer afternoon, perhaps having made an 
unusually lucrative bargain in hoop-poles, the tide <yt his 
discourse bore everything before it. We hung on his 
lips entranced. We noticed not that the shadows of 
the evening were gathering, nor remembered that we 
were a mile from home. He had wrought up our 
boyish imagination to the tip-top pitch. He had told 
us how doors opened when there was no hand on the 
latch, and the eyes of a face in a picture winked one 
w-indy night; and how intangible objects in white would 
glide across the room, and headless trunks rode past on 



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79 


phantom horses j and how boys, on the way home at 
night, were met by a sheeted form that picked them up 
and carried them off, so that they never were heard of, 
their mother going around as disconsolate as the woman 
in the “Lost Heir,” crying: “Where’s Billy?” 

This last story roused us up to our whereabouts, and 
we felt we must go home. Our hair, that usually stood 
on end, took the strictly perpendicular. Our flesh 
crept with horror of the expedition homeward. Our 
faith in everything solid had been shaken. We believed 
only in the subtile and intangible. What could a boy 
seven years old depend upon if one of these headless 
horsemen might any moment ride him down, or one of 
these sheeted creatures pick him up? 

We started up the road. We were barefoot. We 
were not impeded by any useless apparel. It took us 
no time to get under way. We felt that if we must 
perish, it would be well to get as near the door-sill of 
home as possible. We vowed that if we were only 
spared this once to get home, we would never again 
allow the night to catch us at the cooper’s. The ground 
flew under our feet. No headless horseman could have 
kept up. Not a star was out. It was the blackness of 
darkrtess. We had made half the distance, and were in 
“the hollow”—the most lonely and dangerous part of 
the way—and felt that in a minute more we might 
abate our speed and take fuller breath. 

But, alas! no such good fortune awaited us. Suddenly 
our feet struck a monster—whether beastly, human, 
infernal, or supernatural, witch, ghost, demon, or headless 
horseman, we could not immediately tell. We fell 
prostrate, our hands passing over a hairy creature; and, 


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as our head struck the ground, the monster rose up 
throwing our feet into the air. To this day it would 
have been a mystery, had not a fearful bellow revealed 
it as a cow, which had lain down to peaceful slumber 
in the road, not anticipating the terrible collision. She 
wasted no time, but started up the road. We joined 
her.in the race. We knew not but that it was the first 
installment of disasters. And, therefore, away we went, 
cow and boy; but the cow beat. She came into town 
a hundred yards ahead. I have not got over it yet, that 
I let that cow beat. 

That was the first and last ghost we ever met. We 
made up our minds for all time to'come that the obstacles 
in life do not walk on the wind, but have either two 
legs or four. The only ghosts that glide across the 
room are those of the murdered hours of the past. 
When the door swings open without any hand, we send 
for the locksmith to put on a better latch. Sheeting 
has been so high since the,war that apparitions will 
never wear it again. Friday is an .unlucky day only 
when on it we behave ill. If a salt-cellar upset, it 
means no misfortune unless you have not paid for the 
salt. Spirits of the departed have enough employment 
in the next world to keep them from cutting up monkey- 
shines in this. Better look out for cows than for spooks. 


THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

Dickens. 

The kettle began it! Don’t tell me what Mrs. 
Peerybingle said. I know better. Mrs. Peerybingle 
may leave it on record to the end of time that she 



BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 81 

couldn’t say which of them began it; but I say the 
kettle did. I ought to know, I hope! The kettle be¬ 
gan it, full five minutes by the little waxy.faced Dutch 

clock in the corner, before the Cricket uttered a chirp. 

Why, I .am not naturally positive. Everyone knows 
that I wouldn’t set my opinion against the opinion of 
Mrs. Peerybingle, unless I were quite sure, on any ac¬ 
count whatever. Nothing should induce me. But this 
is a question of fact. And the fact is, that the kettle 
began it, at least five minutes before the Cricket gave 
any sign of being in existence. Contradict me, and I’ll 
say ten. 

Let me narrate exactly how it happened. I should 
have proceeded to do so, in my very first word, but for 
this plain consideration—if I am to tell a story I must 
begin at the beginning; and how is it possible to begin 
at the beginning, without beginning at the kettle? 

It appears as if there were a sort of match, or trial of 
skill, you must understand, between the kettle and the 
Cricket. And this is what led to it, and how it came 
about. 

Mrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, 
and clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens 
that worked innumerable rough impressions of the first 
proposition in Euclid all about the yard—Mrs. Peery¬ 
bingle filled the kettle at the water-butt. Presently 
returning, less the pattens (and a good deal less, for 
they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was but short), 
she set the kettle on the fire. 

In doing which she lost her temper, or mislaid it for 
an instant; for, the water being uncomfortably cold, 
and in that slippy, slushy, sleety sort of state wherein 


82 BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 

it seems to penetrate through every kind of substance, 
patten-rings included—had laid hold of Mrs. Peery- 
bingle’s toes, and even splashed her. 

Besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. 
It wouldn’t allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; 
it wouldn’t hear of accommodating itself kindly to the 
knobs of coal, it 'would lean forward with a drunken 
air, and dribble, a very idiot of a kettle, on the hearth. 
It was quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered morosely 
at the fire. 

To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle’s 
fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvy, and then, with 
an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, 
dived sideways in—down to the very bottom of the 
kettle. And the hull of the Royal George has never 
made half the monstrous resistance to coming out of the 
water which the lid of that kettle employed against 
Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again. 

It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then, 
carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking 
its spout pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as 
if it said: “I won’t boil. Nothing shall induce me.” 

Now it was, you observe, that the kettle began to 
spend the evening. Now it was, that the kettle, grow¬ 
ing mellow and musical, began to have irrepressible 
gurglings in *its throat, and to indulge in short vocal 
snorts, which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn’t quite 
made up its mind yet to be good company. Now it 
was, that after two or three such vain attempts to stifle 
its convivial sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all 
reserve, and burst into a stream of song so cosy and 
hilarious as never maudlin nightingale yet formed the 
least idea of. 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


83 


And here, if you like, the Cricket did chime in with 
a Chirrup, Chirrup, Chirrup of such magnitude, by way 
of chorus—with a voice so astoundingly dispropor¬ 
tionate to its size as compared with the kettle (size! 
you couldn’t see it!) that if it had then and there burst 
itself like an overcharged gun, if it had fallen a victim 
on the spot, and chirruped its little body into fifty 
pieces, it would have seemed a natural and inevitable 
consequence, for which it had expressly labored. 

There was all the excitement of a race about it. 
Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, 
hum, hum—m—m! Kettle making play in the distance, 
like a great top. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket round 
the corner. Hum, hum, hum—m—m! Kettle sticking 
to him in his old way; no idea of giving in. Chirp, 
chirp, chirp! Cricket fresher than ever. Hum, hum, 
hum—m—m! Kettle slow and steady. Chirp, chirp, 
chirp! Cricket going in to finish him. Hum, hum, 
hum—m—m! Kettle not to be finished. Until at last, 
they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry, 
helter-skelter of the match, that whether the kettle 
chirped and the Cricket hummed, or the Cricket chirped 
and the kettle hummed, or they both chirped and 
hummed, it would have taken a clearer head than yours 
or mine to decide with anything like certainly. 

But of this there is no doubt, that the kettle and the 
Cricket, at one and the same moment, and by some 
power of amalgamation best known to themselves, sent 
each his fireside song of comfort streaming into a ray 
of the candle that shone out through the window, and 
a long way down the lane. And this light, bursting 
on a certain person who, on the instant, approached 


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BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


toward it through the gloom, expressed the whole 
thing to him, literally in a twinkling, and cried: Wel¬ 
come home, old fellow! Welcome home, my boy! 


THE BRAKEMAN AT CHURCH. 

R. J. Burdette. 

On the road once more, with Lebanon fading away 
in the distance, the fat passenger drumming idly on 
the window pane, the cross passenger sound asleep, 
and the tall, thin passenger reading “Gen. Grant’s Tour 
Around the World,” and wondering why “Green’s 
August Flower” should be printed above the doors of 
“A Buddhist Temple at Benares.” To me comes the 
brakeman, and, seating himself on the arm of the seat, 
says: “I went to church yesterday.” 

“Yes?” I asked, with that intended inflection that asks, 
for more. “And what church did you attend?” 

“Which do you guess?” he asked. 

“Some union mission church?” I hazarded. 

“No,” he said. “I don’t like to run on these branch 
roads very much. I don’t often go to church, and 
when I do, I want to run on the main line, where your 
run is regular, and you go on schedule time, and don’t 
have to wait on connections. I don’t like to run on a 
branch. Good enough, but I don’t like it.” 

“Episcopal?” I guessed. 

“Limited express,” he said. “All palace cars and $2 
extra for a seat, fast time, and only stop at big stations. 
Nice line, but too exhaustive for a brakeman. All 
trainmen go in uniform, conductor’s punch and lantern 
silver-plated, and no train boys allowed. Then the 



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85 


passengers are allowed to talk back at the conductor, 
and it makes them too free and easy. No, I couldn’t 
stand the palace cars. Rich road though. Don’t often 
hear of a receiver being appointed for that line. Some 
mighty nice people travel on it, too.” 

“Universalist?” 1 suggested. 

“Broad gauge,” said the brakeman; “does too much 
complimentary business. Everybody travels on a pass. 
Conductor doesn’t get a fare once in fifty miles. Stops 
at flag stations, and won’t run into anything but a union 
depot. No smoking car on the train. Train orders 
are rather vague though, and the trainmen don’t get 
along well with the passengers. No, 1 don’t go to the 
Universalist, but I know some good men who run on 
that road.” 

“Presbyterian, maybe?” 

“Narrow gauge,” said the brakeman; “pretty track, 
straight as a rule; tunnel right through a mountain 
rather than go around it; spirit-level grade; passengers 
have to show their tickets before they get on the train. 
Mighty strict road, but the cars are a little narrow; 
have to sit one in a seat, and no room in the aisle to 
dance. Then, there is no stop-over tickets allowed; got 
to go straight through to the station you’re ticketed for, 
or you can’t get on at all. When the car is full, no 
extra coaches; cars built at the shop to hold just so 
many, and nobody else allowed on. But you don’t 
often hear of an accident on that road. It’s run right 
up to the rules.” 

“Maybe you joined the Free-Thinkers?” I said. 

“Scrub road,” said the brakeman; “dirt road-bed and 
no ballast ; no time-card and no train-dispatcher. All 


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trains run wild, and every engineer makes his own time, 
just as he pleases. Smoke if you want to. Kind of go-as- 
you-please road. Too many side tracks, and every 
switch open all the time, with the switchman sound 
asleep and the target lamp dead out. Get on as you 
please, and get off when you want to. Don’t have to 
show your tickets, and the conductor isn’t expected to 
do anything but amuse the passengers. No, sir. I 
was offered a pass, but I don’t like the line. I don’t 
like to travel on a road that has no terminus. Do you 
know, sir, I asked a division superintendent where that 
road run to, and he said he hoped to die if he knew. I 
asked him if the general superintendent could tell me, 
and he said he didn’t believe they had a general super¬ 
intendent, and if they had he didn’t know anything 
more about the road than the passengers. I asked him 
whom he reported to, and he said: ‘Nobody.’ I asked 
a conductor whom he got his orders from, and he said he 
didn’t take orders from any living man or dead ghost. 
And, when I asked the engineer whom he got his orders, 
from, he said he’d like to see anybody give him orders; 
he’d run the train to suit himself, or he’d run it into the 
ditch. Now you see, sir, I’m a railroad man, and I 
don’t care to run on a road that has no time, makes no 
connections, runs nowhere, and has no superintendent. 
It may be all right, but I’ve railroaded too long to un¬ 
derstand it.” 

“ Maybe you went to the Congregational Church? ” 

“ Popular road,” said the brakeman; “an old road, 
too—one of the very oldest in the country. Good road¬ 
bed and comfortable cars. Well-managed road, too; 
directors don’t interfere with division superintendents 


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87 


and train orders. Road’s mighty popular, but it’s 
pretty independent, too. Yes, didn’t one of the division 
superintendents down East discontinue one of the oldest 
stations on this line two or three years ago? But it’s a 
mighty pleasant road to travel on—always has such a 
pleasant class of passengers.” 

“ Did you try the Methodist? ” I said. 

“Now you’re shouting!” he said, with some enthu¬ 
siasm. “Nice road! Fast time and plenty of passen¬ 
gers. Engines carry a power of steam, and don’t you 
forget it; steam-gauge shows a hundred, and enough 
all the time. Lively road; when the conductor shouts 
4 all aboard,’ you can hear him at the next station. 
Every train-light shines like a head-light. Stop-over 
checks are given on all through tickets; a passenger 
can drop off the train as often as he likes, do the station 
two or three days, and hop on the next revival train 
that comes thundering along. Good, whole-souled, 
companionable conductors; ain’t a road in the country 
where the passengers feel more at home. No passes; 
every passenger pays full traffic rates for his ticket, 
Wesleyanhouse air-brakes on all trains, too; pretty safe 
road, but I didn’t ride over it yesterday.” 

“Perhaps you tried the Baptist?” I guessed once 
more. 

“Ah, ha!” said the brakeman; “she’s a daisy, isn’t 
she? River road; beautiful curves; sweeps around 
anything to keep close to the river, but it is all steel rail 
and rock ballast; single track all the way, and not a side¬ 
track from the roundhouse to the terminus. Takes a 
heap of water to run it, though; double tanks at every 
station, and there isn’t an engine in the shops that can 


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pull a pound or run a mile with less than two gauges. 
But it runs through a lovely country; those river roads 
always do; river on one side and hills on the other, and 
it’s a steady climb up the grade all the way till the run 
ends where the fountain-head of the river begins. Yes, 
sir; I’ll take the river road every time for a lovely trip; 
sure connections and a good time, and no prairie dust 
blowing in at the windows. And, yesterday, when the 
conductor came around for the tickets with a little 
basket punch, I didn’t ask him to pass me, but I paid 
my fare like a little man—twenty-five cents for an 
hour’s run, and a little concert by the passengers 
thrown in. I tell you, pilgrim, you take the river road 
when you want-” 

But just here the long whistle from the engine 
announced a station, and the brakeman hurried to the 
door, shouting: 

“Zionsville! This train makes no stops between 
here and Indianapolis!” 


THE BOYS * 

' Oliver W* Holmes . 

[This selection is a poem addressed to the class of 1829, in Harvard 
College, some thirty years after their graduation.] 

Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? 

If there has, take him out, without making a noise. 
Hang the almanac’s cheat and the catalogue’s spite! 

Old Time is a liar; we’re twenty to-night. 

We’re twenty! We’re twenty ! Who says we are more ? 
He’s tipsy—young jackanapes!—show him the door! 
“Gray temples at twenty?”—Yes! white'll we please; 




BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


89 


Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there’s nothing can 
freeze! 

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! 
Look close—you will see not a sign of a flake! 

We want some new garlands for those we have shed, 
And these are white roses in place of the red. 

We’ve a trick, we young fellows, you may have been 
told, 

Of talking (in public) as if we were old. 

That boy we call “Doctor” and this we call “Judge!” 
It’s a neat little fiction—of course, it’s all fudge. 

That fellow’s the “Speaker,” the one on the right; 
“Mr. Mayor,” my young one, how are you to-night? 
That’s our “Member of Congress,” we say when we 
chaff; 

There’s the “Reverend”—what’s his name?—don’t make 
me laugh. 

That boy with the grave, mathematical look 
Made believe he had written a wonderful book, 

And the Royal Society thought it was true! 

So they chose him right in—a good joke it was, too! 

There’s a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain, 
That could harness a team with a logical chain; 

When he spoke‘for our manhood in syllabled fire 
We called him the “Justice,” but now he’s the “Squire.” 

And there’s a nice youngster of excellent pith; 

Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith. 

But he shouted a song for the brave and the free— 

Just read on his medal: “My country,” “of thee!” 


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You hear that boy laughing? You think he’s all fun; 
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; 
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, 

And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all. 

Yes, we’re boys—always playing with tongue or with 
pen; 

And I sometimes have asked: Shall we ever be men? 
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay, 
Till the last dear companion drops smiling away ? 

Then here’s to our boyhood, its gold ajid its gray! 

The stars of its winter, the dews of its May! 

And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, 
Dear Father, take care of Thy children, the boys! 

* Recited with great success by Alphonse Phillips. 


EVANGELINE ON THE PRAIRIE. 

H. W. Longfellow• 

Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of the 
forest, 

Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On the 
river 

Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous 
gleam of the moonlight, 

Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and 
devious spirit. 

Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers of 
the garden 

Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers 
and confessions, 


With kind permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Gol 




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91 


Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent Car¬ 
thusian. 

Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with 
shadows and night-dews, 

Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm and the 
magical moonlight 

Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable longings, 

As, through the garden gate, and beneath the shade of 
the oak-trees, 

Passed she along the path to the edge of the measure¬ 
less prairie. 

Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and fire-flies 

Gleaming and floating away in mingled and infinite 
numbers. 

Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the 
heavens, 

Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel 
and worship, 

Save when a blazing comet was seen on the walls of 
that temple, 

As if a hand had appeared and written upon them 
“Upharsin.” 

And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and the 
fire-flies, 

Wandered alone, and she cried: “O Gabriel! O my 
beloved! 

Art thou so near unto me, and yet I can not behold thee? 

Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not 
reach me? 

Ah! how often thy feet have trod this path to the 
prairie! 

Ah! how often thine eyes have looked on the wood¬ 
lands around mel 


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Ah! how often beneath this oak, returning from labor, 

Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of me in thy 
slumbers! 

When shall these eyes behold, these arms be folded 
about thee ?” 

Loud and sudden and near the note of a whippoorwill 
sounded, 

Like a flute in the woods; and anon, through the neigh¬ 
boring thickets, 

Farther and farther away it floated and dropped into 
silence. 

“Patience!” whispered the oaks from oracular caverns of 
darkness; 

And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh reponded: “To¬ 
morrow !” 


“THE WIFE OF BENEDICT ARNOLD.” 

T. Berry Smith. 

A gravestone lay upon the ground, 

The weeds and grass entangled ’round, 

And when I turned it o’er and read 
This terse inscription there was spread: 

“ The Wife of Benedict Arnold.” 

Much was I filled with large surprise 
And wonder I could not disguise 
To find upon a carven stone 
That tarnished name so widely known— 

The name of Benedict Arnold. 

At once I thought of all the shame 
That clings about the traitor’s name, 

And cried: “ Why should these ashes share 



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That which is shameful everywhere— 
The shame of Benedict Arnold?” 

If she was kind, if she was true, 

If Christian making small ado, 

We can not tell. This silent stone 
Makes this confession, this alone: 

“ The Wife of Benedict Arnold.” 

This simple stone about her saith 
No name, no date of birth or death; 
Here is inscribed one single thought 
In chiseled letters plainly wrought: 

“ The Wife of Benedict Arnold.” 

Oh, lasting shame! Oh, deep disgrace! 
Enough in life’s all-conscious race! 
Why o’er her, in unconscious sleep, 
Upon a stone such memory keep: 

“ The Wife of Benedict Arnold? ” 


“GOOD-NIGHT, PAPA.” 

American Messenger. 

The words of a blue-eyed child as she kissed her 
chubby hand and looked down the stairs: “Good-night, 
papa; Jessie see you in the morning.” 

It came to be a settled thing, and every evening, as 
the mother slipped the white night-gown over the 
plump shoulders, the little one stopped on the stairs and 
sang out: “Good-night, papa.” And as the father heard 
the silvery accents of the child, he came, and taking the 
cherub in his arms, kissed her tenderly, while the 
mother’s eyes filled, and a swift prayer went up, for, 



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strange to say, this man, who loved his child with all 
the warmth of his great, noble nature, had one fault to 
mar his manliness. From his youth he loved the wine- 
cup. Genial in spirit, and with a fascination of man¬ 
ner that won him friends, he could not resist when sur¬ 
rounded by boon companions. Thus his home was 
darkened, the heart of his wife bruised and bleeding, 
the future of his child shadowed. 

Three years had the winsome prattle of the baby 
crept into the avenues of the father’s heart, keeping 
him closer to his home, but still the fatal cup was in his 
hand. Alas for frail humanity, insensible to the calls 
of love! With unutterable tenderness God saw there was 
no other way; this father was dear to Him, the purchase 
of His only Son; He could not see him perish, and, call¬ 
ing a swift messenger, He said: “Speed thee to earth 
and bring the babe.” 

“Good-night, papa,” sounded from the stairs. What 
was there in the voice? Was it the echo of the man¬ 
date: “Bring me the babe”—a silvery, plaintive sound, 
a lingering music, that touched the father’s heart, as 
when a cloud crosses the sun? “Good-night, my dar¬ 
ling;” but his lips quivered and his broad- brow grew 
pale. “Is Jessie sick, mother? Her cheeks are flushed 
and her eyes have a strange light.” 

“Not sick,” and the mother stooped to kiss the 
flushed brow; “she may have played too much. Pet is 
not sick.” 

“Jessie tired, mamma. Good-night, papa; Jessie see 
you in the morning.” 

“That is all—she is only tired,” said the mother, as she 
took the small hand. Another kiss, and the father 
turned away; but his heart was not satisfied. 


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Sweet lullabies were sung, but Jessie was restless and 
'could not sleep. “Tell me a story, mamma;” and the 
mother told of the blessed b&be that Mary cradled, fol¬ 
lowing along the story till the child had grown to walk 
and play. The blue, wide-open eyes filled with a strange 
light, as though she saw and comprehended more than 
the mother knew. 

That night the father did not visit the saloon; tossing 
on his bed, starting from a feverish sleep and bending 
over the crib, the long, weary hours passed. Morning 
revealed the truth—Jessie was smitten with the fever. 

“Keep her quiet,” said the doctor; “a few days of 
good nursing and she will be all right.” • 

Words easily said; but the father saw a look on the 
sweet face such as he had seen before. He knew the 
message was at the door. 

Night came. “Jessie is sick; can’t say good-night, 
papa.” And the little, clasping fingers clung to the 
father’s hand. 

“O God, spare her! I can not, can not bear it!” was 
wrung from his suffering heart. 

Days passed; the mother was tireless in her watch¬ 
ing. With her babe cradled in her arms, her heart was 
slow to take in the truth, doing her best to solace the 
father’s heart: “A light case! The doctor says: ‘Pet 
will soon be well.’ ” 

Calmly, as one who knows his doom, the father laid 
his hand upon the hot brow, looked into the eyes even 
then covered with the film of death, and with all the 
strength of his manhood cried: “Spare her, O God! 
Spare my child, and I will follow Thee.” 


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With a last, painful effort the parched lips opened: 
“Jessie’s too sick; can’t say good-night, papa—in the 
morning.” There was a convulsive shudder, and the 
clasping fingers relaxed their hold; the messenger had 
taken the child. 

Months have passed. Jessie’s crib stands by the side 
of her father’s couch; her blue embroidered dress and 
white hat hang in his closet; her boots with the print of 
the feet just as she last wore them, as sacred in his eyes as 
they are in the mother’s. Not dead, but merely risen 
to a higher life; while, sounding down from the upper 
stairs: “Good-night, papa; Jessie see you in the morn¬ 
ing,” has bebn the means of winning to a better way 
one who had shown himself deaf to every former call. 


THE DOOM OF CLAUDIUS AND CYNTHIA. 

Maurice Thompson. 

It was in the mid-splendor of the reign of the 
Emperor Commodus. The emperor was quite easily 
flattered, and more easily insulted. Especially desirous 
of being accounted the best swordsman and the most 
fearless gladiator in Rome, he still better enjoyed the 
reputation of being the incomparable archer. With a 
view to this, he had assiduously trained himself so as to 
be able, in various public places, to give startling exhi¬ 
bitions of his skill with the bow and arrows. Often in 
the Circus he had shot off an ostrich’s head while the 
bird was running at full speed across the arena in view 
of the astonished multitudes. No archer had ever 
.been able to compete with him. This success had ren¬ 
dered him a monomaniac on the subject of archery, 



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affecting him so deeply, indeed, that he cared more for 
his fame as a consummate bowman than for the dignity 
and honor of his name and responsibility as emperor of 
Rome. This being true, it can well be understood 
how Claudius, by publicly boasting that he was a better 
archer than Commodus, had brought upon himself the 
calamity of a public execution. But not even Nero 
would have thought of bringing the girl to death for 
the fault of her lover. Commodus was the master 
tyrant and fiend. Claudius, and his bride had been 
arrested together at their nuptial feast and dragged to 
separate dungeons to await the emperor’s will. 

The rumor was abroad in Rome that on a certain 
night a most startling scene would be enacted in the 
Circus. That the sight would be blood-curdling in the 
last degree was taken by everyone for granted. Emis¬ 
saries of Commodus had industriously sown about the 
streets hints, too vague to take definite form, calculated 
to arouse great interest. The result was that on the 
night in question the vast building was crowded at an 
early hour. All the seats were filled with people eager 
to witness some harrowing scene of death. Commodus 
himself, surrounded by a great number of his favorites, 
sat on a high, richly-cushioned throne prepared for him 
about midway one side of the vast inclosure. All was 
still, as if the rpultitude were breathless with expect¬ 
ancy. Presently, out from one of the openings a 
young man and a young woman—a mere girl—their 
Jiands bound behind them, were led forth upon the sand 
of the arena and forced to walk around the entire cir¬ 
cumference of the place. 


7 


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The youth was tall and nobly beautiful, a very Her¬ 
cules in form, an Apollo in grace and charm of move¬ 
ment. The girl was petite and lovely beyond compare. 
His hair was blue-black and crisp, and a young, soft 
beard curled over his cheek and lips. Her hair was 
pure gold, falling to her feet and trailing behind her as 
she walked. His eyes were dark and proud, hers gray 
and deep as those of a goddess. Both were nude, 
excepting a short kirtle reaching to near the knee. 
They seemed to move half unconscious of their sur¬ 
roundings, all bewildered ^tnd dazzled by the situation. 

At length the giant circuit was completed and the 
two were left standing on the sand, distant about one 
hundred and twenty feet from the emperor, who now 
arose and in a loud voice said: 

«Behold the condemned Claudius and Cynthia, 
whom he lately took for his wife. They are con¬ 
demned to death for the great folly of Claudius, that 
the Roman people may know that Commodus reigns 
supreme. The crime for which they are to die is a 
great one. Claudius has publicly proclaimed that he is 
a better archer than I, Commodus, am. I am the 
emperor and the incomparable archer of Rome. Who¬ 
ever disputes it dies, and his wife dies with him. It is 
decreed.” 

This strange speech was repeated, sentence after 
sentence, by criers placed at intervals around the wall, 
so that every person in that vast crowd heard every 
word. No one, however, was astonished at the infa¬ 
mous deed in contemplation. To6 often had Commodus,* 
for the most trivial offense, or for no offense at all, hur¬ 
ried Roman citizens to bloody death. And, indeed, why 


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99 


should a multitude, schooled to take keen delight in 
gladiatorial combats, ever shudder at anything? 

But it was enough to touch the heart of even a Ro¬ 
man to see the tender innocence of that fair girl’s face as 
she turned it up in speechless, tearless, appealing grief 
and anguish to her husband’s. Her pure bosom heaved 
and quivered with the awful terror suddenly generated 
within. The youth, erect and powerful, set his thin 
lips firmly and kept his eyes looking straight out 
before him. Among the on-lookers, many knew him 
as a trained athlete, and especially as an almost unerr¬ 
ing archer. They knew him, too, as a brave soldier, a 
true friend, an honorable citizen. Little time remained 
for such reflections as naturally might have arisen, for 
immediately a large cage, containing two fiery-eyed and 
famished tigers, was brought into the Circus and placed 
before the victims. The hungry beasts were excited to 
madness by the smell of fresh blood smeared on the 
bars of the cage for that purpose. They growled and 
howled, lapping their fiery tongues and plunging 
against the door. 

A murmur ran all round that vast ellipse—a murmur 
of remonstrance and disgust; for now everyone saw 
that the spectacle was to be a foul murder, without even 
the show of a struggle. The alert eyes of Commodus 
were bent upon the crouching beasts. At the same 
time he noted well the restlessness and disappointment 
of the people. He understood his subjects and knew 
how to excite them. He was preparing to do a deed 
by which he hoped to elicit great applause. His triumph 
came like a thunderbolt, and in a twinkling all was 
changed. 


100 BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 

The limbs of the poor girl had begun to give way 
under her, and she was slowly sinking to the ground. 
This seemed greatly to affect the man, who, without 
lowering his fixed eyes, tried to support her with his 
body. Despite his efforts she slid down and lay in a 
helpless heap at his feet. The lines on his manly face 
deepened, and a slight ashy pallor flickered on brow 
and eyelids. But he did not tremble. He stood like a 
statue of Hercules. 

Then a sound came from the cage which no words 
can ever describe—the hungry howl, the clashing teeth, 
the hissing breath of the tigers, along with a sharp 
clang of the iron bars spurned by their rushing feet. 
The Circus fairly shook with the plunge of Death 
toward its victims. 

Suddenly, in this last moment, the maiden, by a great 
effort, writhed to her feet, and covered the youth’s body 
with her own. Such lave! It should have sweetened 
death for that young man. How white his face grows! 
How his eyes flame, immovably fixed upon the coming 
demons! Those who have often turned up their thumbs 
in this place for men to die now hold their breath in 
utter disgust and sympathy. 

Look for a brief time upon the picture: Fifty thousand 
faces or more thrust forward gazing; the helpless couple, 
lost to everything but the black horrors of death, quiv¬ 
ering from foot to crown. Note the spotless beauty 
and the unselfish love of the girl. Mark well the stern 
power of the young man’s face. Think of the marriage 
vows just taken, of the golden bowl of bliss a moment 
ago at their young lips. Think how sweet life must 
be to them on the threshold of their honeymoon. And 


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now, oh! now, look at the bounding, flaming-eyed 
tigers! See how one leads the other in the awful race 
to the feast! The girl is nearer than the man. She 
will feel the claws and fangs first. How wide those 
red, frothy mouths gape! How the red tongues loll! 
The sand flies up in a cloud from the armed feet of the 
leaping brutes. 

There came from the place where Commodus stood 
a clear, musical note such as might have come from the 
gravest chord of a lyre if powerfully stricken, closely 
followed by a keen, far-reaching hiss, like the whisper 
of fate, ending in a heavy blow. The multitude caught 
breath and stared. The foremost tiger, while yet in 
mid-air, curled itself up with a gurgling cry of utter 
pain, and with the blood gushing from its eyes, ears, and 
mouth, fell heavily down, dying. Again the sweet, 
insinuating twang, the hiss, and the stroke. The second 
beast fell dead or dying upon the first. This explained 
all. The emperor had demonstrated his right to be 
called the Royal Bowman of the World. 

Had the tyrant been content to rest here all would 
have been well. While yet the beasts were faintly 
struggling with death, he gave orders for a shifting of 
the scene. He was insatiable. 

For the first time during the ordeal the youth’s eyes 
moved. The girl, whose back was turned toward the 
beasts, was still waiting for the crushing horror of their 
assault. 

A soldier, as directed, now approached the twain, and, 
seizing an arm of each, led them some paces farthefr 
away from the emperor, where he stationed them facing 
each other, and with their sides to Commodus, who was 


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preparing to shoot again. Before drawing his bow, 
however, he cried aloud: 

“Behold! Commodus will pierce the center of the 
ear of each!” 

As before, the cry was caught up by other voices and 
echoed around the vast place. 

The lovers were gazing into each other’s eyes, still as 
statues, as if frozen by the cold fascination of death. 
The excitement of the spectators reached the last degree 
when the great horn bow was again raised. 

And now the end was near. All around that vast 
space, tier above tier, the pallid faces of the spectators 
rose to a dizzy height, seeming, by their ghastly glow, 
to blend a strange light with the fierce glare of the flam¬ 
beaux, so intense was their excitement. Every soul in 
that multitude was for the time suspended above the 
abysm of destruction, realizing the feebleness of Life, 
the potency of Death. 

Commodus drew his bow with tremendous power, 
fetching the cord back to his breast, where for a 
moment it was held without the faintest quiver of a 
muscle. His eyes were fixed, and cold as steel. The 
polished broad head of the arrow shone like a diamond. 
One would have thought that the breathing of a breath 
could have been heard across tfre Circus. 

While yet the pink flush burned on the delicate ear 
of the girl, and while the hush of the Circus deepened 
infinitely, out rang the low note of the great weapon’s 
recoil. The arrow fairly shrieked through the air, so 
swift was its flight. 

■What words can ever suggest an idea of the torture 
crowded into that point of time betwixt the ringing of 
the bow-cord and the striking of the arrow? 


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103 


The youth, particularly, was shaken with a sudden, 
wild ecstasy of horror. As when a whirlwind, leaping 
from a balmy summer calm, stirs a sleeping pool into a 
white-foamed, spiral flood, so Death had at last torn up 
the fountain of his soul. It was more than death when 
the arrow had done its work with her. 

The girl thrilled with ineffable pain, flung up her 
white arms above her head, the rent thongs flying away 
in the paroxym of her final struggle. Hers was a 
slight body, and the arrow, not perceptibly impeded by 
the mark, struck in the sand beyond, and, glancing 
thence, whirled far away and rang on the bricks of the 
spina. Something like a divine smile flashed across her 
face along with a startling pallor. 

Again the bow-string rang, and the arrow leaped 
away to its thrilling work. What a surge the youth 
made! It was as if death had charged him with omnipo¬ 
tence for the second. The cord leaped from his 
wrists. He clasped the falling girl in his embrace. All 
eyes saw the arrow hurtling along the sand, after its 
mission was done. A suppressed moan from a multi¬ 
tude of lips filled the calm air of the Circus. 

Locked for one brief moment in each other’s arms, 
the quivering victims wavered on their feet, then sank 
down upon the ground. Commodus stood like Fate, 
leaning forward to note the perfectness of his execu¬ 
tion. His eyes blazed with the eager heartless fire of 
triumph. 

Now here is the denouement . Even the most exact¬ 
ing modern critic could find nothing further to desire in 
the catastrophe of a tragedy. The fated lovers lay 
in awful agony, locked in the strong embrace of a 


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deathless passion. No hand dared separate them; no 
lip dared whisper them a last farewell. The place might 
have been a vast tomb, for all the sign of life it con¬ 
tained. The circles of countless faces were like those 
of the dead. 

The two tigers lay in their blood, where they had 
fallen, each with a broad-headed arrow through the 
spinal cord, at the point of its juncture with the brain. 
The emperor’s aim had been absolutely accurate. In¬ 
stant paralysis and quick death had followed his shots. 

But the crowning event of the occasion was revealed 
at the last. 

Pale and wild-eyed, their faces pinched and shriveled, 
the youth and the maid started, with painful totterings 
and weak clutchings at the air, and writhed to their 
feet, where they stood staring at each other in a way 
to chill the blood of any observer. Then, as if attracted 
by some irresistible fascination, they turned their mute, 
sunken faces toward Commodus. What a look! Why 
did it not freeze him dead were he stood? 

“Lead them out and set them free!” cried the em¬ 
peror, in a loud, heartless voice. “Lead them out, and 
tell it everywhere that Commodus is the Incomparable 
Bowman!” 

And then, when all at once it was discovered that he 
had not hurt the lovers, but had merely cut in two with 
his arrows the cords that bound their wrists, a great stir 
began, and out from a myriad overjoyed and admiring 
hearts leaped a storm of thanks, while with clash and 
bray of musical instruments, and with voices like the 
voices of winds and seas, and with a clapping of hands 
like the rending roar of tempests, the vast audience 
arose as one person and applauded the emperor! 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 105 

THE HERO WOMAN.* 

Geo. Lippard. 

There was something very beautiful in that picture! 
The form of a young girl, framed by the square, mass¬ 
ive window, the contrast between the rough timbers 
that inclosed her and that rounded face—the lips part- 
ing, the hazel eye dilating, and the cheek warming and 
flushing with hope and fear; there was something very 
beautiful in that picture—a young girl leaning from 
the window of an old mansion, with her brown hair 
waving in glossy masses around her face! 

Suddenly the shouts to the south grew nearer, and 
then, emerging from the deep hollow, there came an 
old man, running at full speed, yet every few paces 
turning around to fire the rifle which he loaded as he 
ran. He was pursued by a party of ten or more British 
soldiers, who came rushing on, their bayonets fixed, 
as if to strike their victim down ere he advanced ten 
paces nearer the house. 

On and on the old man came, while his daughter, 
quivering with suspense, hung leaning from the win¬ 
dow. He reaches the block-house gate—look! He is 
surrounded, their muskets are leveled at his head; he is 
down, down at their feet, grappling for his life. But 
look again! He dashes his foes aside; with one bold 
movement he springs through the gate; an instant, and 
it is locked*. The British soldiers, mad with rage, gaze 
upon the high wall of logs and stone, and vent their 
anger in drunken curses. 

* Prize declamation, Missouri State University, delivered by 
Samuel A. Lynch. 


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Now look to yonder window! Where the young 
girl stood a moment ago, quivering with suspense as 
she beheld her father struggling for his life, now stands 
that old man himself—his brow bared, his arm grasping 
the rifle, while his gray hairs wave back from his 
wrinkled and blood-dabbled face! That was a fine pict¬ 
ure of an old veteran, nerved for his last fight; a stout 
warrior, preparing for his death-struggle. 

Death-struggle? Yes! for the old man, Isaac Wam- 
pole, had dealt too many hard blows among the British 
soldiers, tricked, foiled, cheated them too often to escape 
now. A few moments longer, and they would be re¬ 
enforced by a strong party of refugees; the powder, 
the arms, in the old block-house, perhaps that daughter 
herself, was to be their reward. There was scarcely a 
hope for the old man, and yet he had determined to 
make a desperate fight. 

“We must bluff off these rascals,” he said, with a 
grim smile, turning to his child. “ Now, Bess, my girl, 
when I fire this rifle do you hand me another, and so 
on, until the whole eight shots are fired. That will 
keep them on the other side of the wall, for a few mo¬ 
ments at least, and then we will have to trust to God 
for the rest.” 

Look down there and see a hand stealing over the 
edge of the wall! The old man levels his piece; that 
British trooper falls back, with a crushed hand, upon 
his comrades’ heads! 

No longer quivering with suspense, but grown sud- 
. denly firm, that young girl passes a loaded rifle to the 
veteran’s grasp, and silently awaits the result. 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


107 


For a moment all is silent below. The British bravoes 
are somewhat loath to try that wall when a stout old 
“Rebel,” rifle in hand, is looking from yonder win¬ 
dow. There is a pause—low, deep murmurs—they are 
holding a council. 

A moment is gone, and nine heads are thrust above 
the wall at once. Hark! One, two, three. The old 
veteran has fired three shots—there are three dying 
men groveling in the yard beneath the shadow of the 
wall. 

“Quick, Bess—the rifles!” 

And the brave girl passes the rifles to her father’s 
grasp. There are four shots, one after the other; three 
more soldiers fall back, like weights of lead, upon the 
ground, and a single Red-coat is seen slowly mounting 
to the top of the wall, his eye fixed upon the hall door, 
which he will force ere a moment is gone! 

Now the last ball is fired, the old man stands there in 
that second-story window, his hands fairly grasping for 
another loaded rifle. At this moment the wounded and 
dying band below are joined by a party of some twenty 
refugees, who, clad in their half-robber uniform, come 
rushing from the woods, and with one bound are leaping 
for the summit of the wall. 

“Quick, Bess—my rifle!” 

And look there; even while the veteran stood looking 
out upon his fees, the brave girl—for, slender in form 
and wildly beautiful in face, she is a brave girl, a hero 
woman—had managed, as if by instinctive impulse, to 
load a rifle. She handed it to her father, and then 
loaded another, and another. Wasn’t that a beautiful 
sight? A fair young girl grasping powder and ball, 


108 BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 

with the ramrod rising and falling in her slender 
fingers! 

Now look down to the wall again. The refugees are 
clambering over its summit—again that fatal aim—again 
a horrid cry, and another wounded man toppling down 
upon his dead and dying comrades! 

But now look! A smoke rises there; a fire blazes up 
around the wall; they have fired the gate! A moment, 
and the bolt and the lock will be burnt from their 
sockets—the passage will be free! Now is the fiery 
moment of the old man’s trial! While his brave 
daughter loads, he continues to fire with that deadly 
aim, but now—oh, horror!—he falls! He falls with a 
musket-ball driven into his breast! The daughters 
outstretched arms receive the father, as, with the blood 
spouting from his wound, he topples back from the 
window. 

Ah, it is a sad and terrible picture! That old man, 
writhing there on the oaken floor, the young daughter 
bending over him, the light from the window stream¬ 
ing over her face, over her father’s gray hairs, while 
the ancient furniture of the small chamber affords a 
dim background to the scene! 

Now hark! The sound of axes at the hall door— 
shouts—hurrahs—curses—“ We have the old rebel at 
last!” 

The ola man raises his head at that sound, makes an 
effort to rise, clutches for a rifle, and then falls back 
again, his eyes glaring, as the fierce pain of that wound 
quivers through his heart. 

Now watch the movements of that daughter. Si¬ 
lently she loads a rifle, silently she rests its barrel 


j 


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109 


against the head of that powder-keg, and then, placing 
her finger on the trigger, stands over her father’s form, 
while the shouts of the enraged soldiers come thunder¬ 
ing from the stairs. Yes, they have broken the hall 
door to fragments; they are in possession of the old 
block-house; they are rushing toward that chamber, 
with murder in their hearts and in their glaring eyes! 
Had the old man a thousand lives they were not worth 
a farthing’s purchase now. 

Still that girl—grown suddenly white as the kerchief 
round her neck—stands there, trembling from head to 
foot, the rifle in her hand, its dark tube laid against the 
powder-keg. 

The door is burst open—look there! Stout forms 
are in the doorway with muskets in their hands. Grim 
faces, stained with blood, glare into the room. 

Now, as if her very soul was coined into the words, 
that young girl, with her face pale as ashes, her hazel 
eye glaring with deadly light, utters this short yet 
meaning speech: 

“Advance one step within this room and I will fire 
this rifle in the powder there!” 

No oath quivered from the lips of that girl to confirm 
her resolution, but there she stands, alone with her 
wounded father, and yet not a soldier dare cross the 
threshold! Imbrued as they were in deeds of blood, 
there is something terrible to these men in the simple 
words of that young girl, who stands there with the 
rifle laid against the powder-keg. 

They stand as if spell-bound on the threshold of that 
chamber. At last, one bolder than the rest, a bravo 


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whose face is half concealed in a thick red beard, grasps 
his musket and levels it at the young girl’s breast: 

“ Stand back, or I’ll fire!” 

Still the girl is firm. The bravo advances a step, and 
then starts back. The sharp “ click ” of that rifle falls 
with an unpleasant emphasis upon his ear. 

“ Bess, I am dying,” gasps the old man, faintly extend¬ 
ing his arms. “ Ha,ha! We foiled the Britishers! Come 
—daughter—kneel here; kneel' and say a prayer for me, 
and let me feel your warm breath upon my face, for I 
am getting cold. Oh, dark and cold!” 

Look! As those trembling accents fall from the old 
man’s tongue those fingers unloose their hold of the rifle. 
Already the troopers are sure of one vict'm, at least— 
a young and beautiful girl; for affection for her father 
is mastering the heroism of the moment. Look! She is 
about to spring into his arms! But now she sees her 
danger! Again she clutches the rifle; again—although 
her father’s dying accents are in her ears—stands there, 
prepared to scatter that house in ruins if a single rough 
hand assails that veteran form. 

There are a few brief, terrible moments of suspense. 
Then a hurried sound far down the mansion; then a 
contest on the stairs; then the echo of rifle-shot and the 
light of rifle-blaze; then those ruffians in the doorway 
fall crushed before the strong arms of Continental sol¬ 
diers. Then a wild shriek quivers through the room, 
and that young girl—that hero woman—with one bound 
springs forward into her brother’s arms and nestles 

there; while her dead father—his form yet warm_lies 

with fixed eyeballs upon the floor. 


i 


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Ill 


THE DREAM OF GREATNESS. 

Rev. Daniel Wise. 

Yonder on the calm, moonlit sea, gliding in solemn 
majesty over the unruffled waters, is a splendid ship. 
Among the dark forms upon her deck may be discerned 
a pale-faced boy, some sixteen summers old. He is 
leaning over the bulwarks, absorbed in a dreamy reverie. 
His imagination is traversing the future of his career. 
Filled with the gay illusions of hope, he peoples the 
years to come with images of success. He beholds 
himself the commander of a great fleet. He wins 
brilliant victories; wealth, honors, fame surround him. 
He is a great man. His name is in the mouth of the 
world. There is a circle of glory round his brow. 

Filled with the idea, he starts! His young heart 
heaving with great purposes, his eyes gleaming with 
the fire of his enkindled soul, his slender form expand¬ 
ing to its utmost height, and his lips moving with 
energy—he paces the silent deck, exclaiming: “ I will 
be a hero; and, confiding in Providence, I will brave 
every danger!” Such was the romantic dream of 
Horatio Nelson, afterward the hero of the Nile, the 
victor of Trafalgar, and the greatest naval commander 
in the world! And what young man has not had 
imaginings equally romantic? 

Where is the' poor sailor-boy who has not dreamed 
of glory and greatness? What young law student has 
not seen in himself a future Littleton, Coke, or Story? 
Where is the printer’s apprentice who has not intended 
to be a Franklin? What young mechanic has not, in 
fancy, written his name beside the names of Ark¬ 
wright, Fulton, or Rumford? What boyish artist 


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has not, in imagination, rivaled Raphael or Michael 
Angelo? What youthful orator has not gathered the 
glory of Burke, Chatham, or Patrick Henry around 
his own name? Nay! There never was a young man, 
of any advantages, who did not rise to eminent success— 
in his hours of reverie. For youth is the period of 
dreams, in which Queen Mab, with her fairy crew, 
holds undisputed reign over the imagination and revels 
at will in the hall of fancy, in the palace of the soul. 

But why, since all dream of greatness, do so few 
attain it? Why stand Nelson, Story, Fulton, Burke 
alone, in the realization of imaginings, among ten 
thousand of their peers, whose early dreams were as 
bright and vivid as their own? Why do so few young 
men distinguish themselves out of the many whose 
hopes, purposes, and resolves are as radiant as the colors 
of the rainbow? 

The answer is obvious. Young men are not willing 
to devote themselves to that process of slow, toilsome 
self-culture which is the price of great success. Could 
they soar to eminence on the lazy wings of genius, the 
world would be filled with great men. But this can 
never be; for, whatever aptitude for particular pursuits 
nature may donate to her favorite children, she conducts 
none but the laborious and the studious to distinction. 
Cicero and Demosthenes, those unrivaled orators of 
antiquity, were diligent students. Sir William Jones, 
the greatest of Oriental scholars; Newton, the first of 
philosophers; Burke, the chief of modern orators; 
Michael Angelo, the model of artists; Haydn and 
Handel, those peerless masters of the musical art; John 
Quincy Adams, the diplomatist and statesman—all 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


113 


mounted the throne of their fame step by step. Their 
glory gathered around them by degrees. Each added 
ray was the result of intense application. 

It was not genius so much as genius sedulously 
cultivated, that enabled them to write their names 
so high on the pillar of fame. Great men have ever 
been men of thought as well as men of action. As 
the magnificent river, rolling in the pride of its mighty 
waters, owes its greatness to the hidden springs of the 
mountain nook, so does the wide-sweeping influence of 
distinguished men date its origin from hours of privacy 
resolutely employed in efforts after self-development. 
The invisible spring of self-culture is the source of 
every great achievement. 


ACROSS THE RIO GRANDE. 

Charles W. Brown. 

The antiquities that mark the civilization of Monte¬ 
zuma and of Cortes and the early Spanish occupancy 
are not the crowning glory of Mexico’s advancing 
civilization. There was a time when Mexico excluded 
from her ports the ships of commerce. That was a 
period of commercial inactivity, a period of retrogres¬ 
sion, a decline in national prosperity, a lack of individual 
enterprise and patriotism. Her commodities—coffee, 
rice, sugar-cane, cocoa, and indigo—found a limited 
market on this side of the broad Atlantic, and her 
stately palms, orange, lemon, and citron trees, and 
forests of ebony, mahogany, fir, pine, spruce, and dye- 
woods rotted as they fell in the dense primeval forests 
in the hot, moist regions in the south of Mexico. 



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No country in the world offers to the student of 
research such a vast unexplored region as Mexico. 
Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and other Eastern empires 
offer, perhaps, the fruits of man’s first inventive genius; 
but Mexico, here at our very door, appeals to the 
student of investigation to explore the buried ruins and 
crumbling mass that outline the antiquities of pre¬ 
historic America. The banks of the Nile, the architect¬ 
ure of ancient Greece and Rome, the buried treasures 
resurrected from the magnificent ruins of Babylon, 
Palmyra, Thebes, and Baalbec offer a vast field for ex¬ 
ploration, but to the archaeologist there is no more fasci¬ 
nating study than that of the history and wealth of 
the great empires—Anahuac, Toltec, and Aztec—on 
the ruins of which the republic of Mexico was built. 

The courts and palaces of native kings were as 
numerous and as varied in their architecture as 
the dialects spoken by the many tribes inhabiting the 
plains of Tezcuco and Tlacopan. Some allowance 
must be made regarding their magnificence and 
grandeur, described by early Mexican and American 
tourists. In the most part, the palaces were of adobe 
and consisted of many rooms and halls, and but one 
story in height. Few precious metals and little marble 
were used in their construction. Gold and silver were 
found in most of the States, and before Cortes landed 
much of these precious metals came from the present 
State of California, but their use for ornamental pur¬ 
poses was reserved for future generations. On the 
site of the ancient Palace of Chapultepec, known as 
the Palace of the President, and on the sumit of a lofty 
rock rising abruptly from the level plain about it, was 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 115 

situated the Palace of Montezuma. The conquering 
Spaniards razed it to the ground, and Cortes built 
another structure in its place. During the war be- 
tween the United States and Mexico this castle was 
destroyed, and in its place was reared the present 
Government building and Executive Mansion. The 
Palace of Tezcuco, surrounded by beautiful groves, 
gardens, and terraces, is fast crumbling away, and an¬ 
other generation will not be able to trace even the 
outlines of this once-famous palace, or to locate the site 
of the gigantic figures of Axayacatl and his son, 
Montezuma, carved in the porphyry hill of Chapul- 
tepec near by. Nearly a century ago all that remained 
of the Tezcucan Palace, the hanging gardens, colossal 
figures, terraces, and aqueduct-channels were destroyed 
by the rebellious tribes of the neighboring States of 
Hidalgo, Puebla, Michoacan, Tlascala, and Queretaro. 


THE AGED PRISONER. 

John G. Whittier. 

Look on him!—through his dungeon grate, 
Feebly and cold, the morning light 
Comes stealing round him dim and late, 

As though it loathed the sight. 

Reclining on his strawy bed, 

His hand upholds his drooping head_ 

His bloodless cheek is seamed and hard, 
Unshorn his gray, neglected beard; 

And o’er his bony fingers flow 
His long, disheveled locks of snow. 


With kind permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 




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No grateful fire before him glows, 

And yet the winter's breath is chill; 
And o’er his half-clad person goes 
The frequent ague thrill! 

Silent, save ever and anon 
A sound, half murmur and half groan, 

Forces apart the painful grip 
Of the old sufferer’s bearded lip. 

Oh, sad and crushing is the fate 
Of old age, chained and desolate! 

Just God! why lies that old man there? 

A murderer shares his prison bed, 
Whose eyeballs, through his horrid hair, 
Gleam on him fierce and red; 

And the rude oath and heartless jeer 
Fall ever on his loathing ear. 

And, or in wakefulness or sleep, 

Nerve, flesh, and pulses thrill and creep 
Whene’er that ruffian’s tossing limb, 
Crimson with murder, touches him! 

What has the gray-haired prisoner done? 
Has murder stained his hands with gore? 
God made the old man poor! 

For this he shares a felon’s cell— 

The fittest earthly type of hell! 

For this boon, for which he poured 
His young blood on the invader’s sword, 
And counted light the fearful cost— 

His blood-gained liberty is lost! 

And so, for such a place of rest, 

Old prisoner, dropped thy blood as rain 


BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 


117 


On Concord’s field, and Bunker’s crest, 

And Saratoga’s plain? 

Look forth, thou man of many scars, 

Through thy dim dungeon’s iron bars; 

It must be joy, in sooth, to see 
Yon monument upreared to thee! 

Piled granite and a prison cell— 

The land repays thy service well! 

Go, ring the bells, and fire the guns, 

And fling the starry banner out; 

Shout “Freedom!” till your lisping ones 
Give back their cradle shout; 

Let boasting eloquence declaim 
Of honor, liberty, and fame; 

Still let the poet’s strain be heard, 

With glory for each second word, 

And every thing with breath agree 
To praise “our glorious liberty.” 

But when the patriot cannon jars 

That prison’s cold and gloomy wall, 

And through its grates the stripes and stars 
Rise on the wind and fall— 

Think ye that prisoner’s aged ear 

Rejoices in the general cheer? j 

Think ye his dim and failing eye 

Is kindled at your pageantry ? 

Sorrowing of soul, and chained of limb, 

What is your carnival to him? 

Down with the law that binds him thus! 

Unworthy freemen, let it find 
No refuge from the withering curse 
Of God and human kind! 


118 BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 

Open the prison’s living tomb, 

And usher from its brooding gloom 
The victims of your savage code, 

To the free sun and air of God; 

No longer dare as crime to brand 
The chastening of the Almighty’s hand. 


CLARENCE’S DREAM. 

Wm. Shakespeare. 

Oh, I have passed a miserable night— 

So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights, 

That, as 1 am a Christian faithful man, 

I would not spend another such a night 
Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days, 

So full of dismal terror was the time. 

Methought that I had broken from the Tower, 

And was embarked to cross to Burgundy, 

And, in my company, my brother Gloster, 

Who from my cabin tempted me to walk 

Upon the hatches; thence we looked toward England 

And cited up a thousand heavy times, 

During the wars of York and Lancaster, 

That had befallen us. As we paced along 
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, 

Methought that Gloster stumbled, and, in falling, 
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard 
Into the tumbling billows of the main. 

O Lord! Methought what pain it was to drown. 

What dreadful noise of water in my ears! 

What sights of ugly death within mine eyes! 
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks; 



BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


119 


A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon; 

Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, 
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels— 

All scattered in the bottom of the sea. 

Some lay in dead men’s skulls; and in those holes 
Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept 
(As ’twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems, 

That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep 
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by. 

Oh, then began the tempest to my soul! 

I passed, methought, the melancholy flood, 

With that grim ferryman which poets write of, 

Unto the kingdom of perpetual night. 

The first that there did greet my stranger soul 
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick, 
Who cried aloud: “What scourge for perjury 
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?” 

Aryl so he vanished. Then came wand’ring by 
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair 
Dabbled in blood, and he shrieked out aloud: 
“Clarence is come—false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, 
That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury. 

Seize on him, furies; take him to your torments!” 

With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends 
Environed me, and howled in mine ears 
Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise, 

I trembling waked, and, for a season after, 

Could not believe but that I was in hell, 

Such terrible impression made my dream. 


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THE LAST HYMN. 

’ Marianne Faming ham. 

The Sabbath day was ending in a village by the sea; 

The uttered benediction touched the people tenderly, 

And they rose to face the sunset in the glowing, lighted 
west, 

And then hastened to their dwellings for God’s blessed 
boon of rest. 

But they looked across the waters, and a storm was 
raging there; 

A fierce spirit moved above them—the wild spirit of 
the air— 

And it lashed, and shook, and tore them till they thun¬ 
dered, groaned, and boomed; 

And, alas! for any vessel in their yawning gulfs 
entombed. 

Very anxious were the people on that rocky coast of 
W ales, 

Lest the dawns of coming morrows should be telling 
awful tales, 

When the sea had spent its passion and shojuld cast upon 
the shore 

Bits of wreck and swollen victims, as it had done here^ 
tofore. 

With the rough winds blowing round her, a brave 
woman strained her eyes, 

As she saw along the billows a large vessel fall and 
rise. 

Oh, it did not need a prophet to tell what the end 
must be, 


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121 


For no ship could ride in safety near that shore on such 
a sea. 

Then the pitying people hurried from their homes and 
thronged the beach. 

Oh, for power to cross the waters and the perishing to 
reach! 

Helpless hands were wrung in terror, tender hearts 
grew cold with dread, 

And the ship, urged by the tempest, to the fatal rock- 
shore sped. 

“She has parted in the middle! Oh, the half of her 
goes down! 

God have mercy! Is His heaven far to seek for those 
who drown? ” 

Lo! when next the white., shocked faces looked with 
terror on the sea, 

Only one last clinging figure on a spar was seen to be. 

Nearer to the trembling watchers came the wreck 
tossed by the wave, 

And .the man still clung and floated, though no power 
on earth could save. 

“ Could we send him a short message? Here’s a trum¬ 
pet—shout away ! ” 

’Twas the preacher’s hand that took it, and he won¬ 
dered what to say. 

Any memory of his sermon? Firstly? Secondly? 
Ah, no. 

There was but one thing to utter in that awful hour 
of woe. 


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So he shouted through the trumpet: “ Look to Jesus! 
Can you hear? ” 

And “Aye, aye, sir!” rang the answer o’er the waters 
loud and clear. 

Then they listened: “ He is singing ‘Jesus, lover of my 
soul!’ ” 

And the winds brought back the echo: “While the 
nearer waters roll.” 

Strange indeed it was to hear him, “ Till the storm of 
life is past! ” 

Singing bravely o’er the waters: “ O receive my soul 
at last.” 

He could have no other refuge—“ Hangs my helpless 
soul on Thee.” 

“Leave, O leave me not”—the singer dropped at last 
into the sea. 

And the watchers looking homeward, through their 
eyes by tears made dim, 

Said: “ He passed to be with Jesus in the singing of 
that hymn.” 


THE SEVENTH PLAGUE OF EGYPT. 
’Twas morn—the rising splendor rolled 
On marble towers and roofs of gold; 

Hall, court, and gallery below 
Were crowded with a living flow; 
Egyptian, Arab, Nubian there, 

The bearers of the bow and spear; 

The hoary priest, the Chaldee sage, 

The slave, the gemmed and glittering page, 



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123 


Helm, turban, and tiara shone— 

A dazzling ring ’round Pharaoh’s throne. 

There came a man—the human tide 
Shrank backward from his stately stride; 

His cheek with storn* and time was tanned; 
A shepherd’s staff was in his hand. 

A shudder of instinctive fear 

Told the dark king what step was near; 

On through the host the stranger came; 

It parted ’round his form like flame. 

He stooped not at the footstool stone; 

He clasped not sandal, kissed not throne; 
Erect he stood amid the ring, 

His only words—“Be just, O king!” 

On Pharaoh’s cheek the blood flushed high, 
A fire was in his sullen eye; 

Yet on the chief of Israel 
No arrow of his thousands fell. 

All mute and moveless as the grave 
Stood chilled the satrap and the slave. 

“ Thou’rt come,” at length the monarch spoke; 
Haughty and high the words outbroke. 

“ Is Israel weary of its lair, 

The forehead peeled, the shoulder bare? 

Take back the answer to your band: 

Go, reap the wind; go, plough the sand; 

Go, vilest of the living vile, 

To build the never-ending pile, 

Till, darkest of the nameless dead, 

The vulture on their flesh is fed. 

What better asks the howling slave 
Than the base life our bounty gave?” 


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Shouted in pride the turbaned peers, 
Upclashed to heaven the golden spears. 

« King! thou and thine are doomed!—Behold! ” 
The prophet spoke—the thunder rolled ! 

Along the pathway of the sun 
Sailed vapory mountains, wild and dun. 

“ Yet there is time,” the prophet said: 

He raised his staff—the storm was stayed: 

“ King! be' the word of freedom given: 

What art thou, man, to war with heaven?” 

There came no word—the thunder broke! 

Like a huge city’s final smoke, 

Thick, lurid, stifling, mixed with flame, 
Through court and hall the vapors came. 

Loose as the stubble in the field, 

Wide flew the men of spear and shield; 
Scattered like foam along the wave, 

Flew the proud pageant, prince, and slave: 

Or, in the chains of terror bound, 

Lay, corpse-like, on the smouldering ground. 

“ Speak, king!—the wrath is but begun— 

Still dumb?—then, Heaven, thy will be done! ” 

Echoed from earth a hollow roar 
Like ocean on the midnight shore 
A sheet of lightning o’er them wheeled, 

The solid ground beneath them reeled; 

In dust Sank roof and battlement; 

Like webs the giant walls were rent; 

Red, broad, before his startled gaze, 

The monarch saw his Egypt blaze. 

Still swelled the plague—the flame grew pale; 


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125 


Burst from the clouds the charge of hail; 
With arrowy keenness, iron weight, 

Down poured the ministers of fate; 

Till man and cattle, crushed, congealed, 
Covered with death the boundless field. 

Still swelled the plague—uprose the blast, 
The avenger, fit to be the last; 

On ocean, river, forest, vale, 

Thundered at once the mighty gale. 

Before the whirlwind flew the tree, 
Beneath the whirlwind roared the sea; 

A thousand ships were on the wave— 
Where are they?—ask that foaming grave! 
Down go the hope, the pride of years, 
Down go the myriad mariners; 

The riches of Earth’s richest zone, 

Gone! like a flash of lightning, gone! 

And, lo! that first fierce triumph o’er, 
Swells Ocean on the shrinking shore; 

Still onward, onward, dark and wide, 
Engulfs the land the furieot tide. 

Then bowed thy spirit, stubborn king, 
Thou serpent, reft of fang and sting; 
Humbled before the prophet’s knee, 

He groaned, “Be injured Israel free.” 

To heaven the sage upraised his wand; 
Back rolled the deluge from the land; 

Back to its caverns sank the gale; 

Fled from the noon the vapors pale; 

Broad burned again the joyous sun; 

The hour of wrath and death was done. 


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NAPOLEON’S OVERTHROW. 

Victor Hugo. 

On the morning of Waterloo, Napoleon was satisfied. 

He was right; the plan of battle which he had con¬ 
ceived was indeed admirable. 

Napoleon was accustomed to look upon war fixedly; 
he never made, figure by figure, the tedious addition of 
details; the figures mattered little to him,provided they 
gave this total: Victory. Though beginnings went 
wrong, he was not alarmed at it—he who believed him¬ 
self master and possessor of the end. He knew how to 
wait, believing himself beyond contingency, and he 
treated destiny as an equal treats an equal. He ap¬ 
peared to say to Fate: “Thou wouldst not dare.” 

About four o’clock, the English line staggered back¬ 
ward. All at once only the artillery and the sharp¬ 
shooters were seen on the crest of the plateau; the rest 
disappeared. The regiments, driven by the shells and 
bullets of the French, fell back into the valley now 
crossed by the cow-path of the farm of Mont Saint 
Jean; a retrogade movement took place, the battle front 
of the English was slipping away, Wellington gave 
ground. “Beginning retreat! ” cried Napoleon. 

At the moment when Wellington d # rew back, Napo¬ 
leon started up. He saw the plateau of Mont Saint 
Jean suddenly laid bare, and the front of the English 
army disappear. It rallied, but kept concealed. The 
Emperor half rose in his stirrups. The flash of victory 
passed into his eyes. Wellington hurled back on the 
forest of Soignes and destroyed; that was the final over¬ 
throw of England by France; it was Cressy, Poitiers, 
Malplaquet, and Ramillies avenged. The man of Ma¬ 
rengo was wiping out Agincourt. 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 127 

The Emperor then, contemplating this terrible turn 
of fortune, swept his glass for the last time over every 
point of the battle-field. His Guard, standing behind 
with grounded arms, looked up to him with a sort of 
religion. He was reflecting; he was examining the 
slopes, noting the ascents, scrutinizing the tuft of trees, 
the square rye field, the footpath; he seemed to count 
every bush. 

He bent over and spoke in an undertone to the guide 
Lacoste. The guide made a negative sign of the head— 
probably treacherous. 

The Emperor rose up and reflected. Wellington had 
fallen back. It remained only to complete this repulse 
by a crushing charge. 

Napoleon, turning abruptly, sent off a courier at full 
speed to Paris to announce that the battle was won. 
Napoleon was one of those geniuses who rule the 
thunder. 

He had found his thunderbolt. 

He ordered Milhaud’s cuirassiers to carry the plateau 
of Mont Saint Jean. 

They were three thousand five hundred. They 
formed a line of half a mile. They were gigantic men 
on colossal horses. There were twenty-six squadrons^ 
and they had behind them, as a support, the division of 
Lefebvre Desnouettes, the hundred and six gendarmes 
d’elite; the Chasseurs of the Guard,eleven hundred and 
ninety-seven men; and the Lancers of the Guard, eight 
hundred and eighty lances. They wore casques with¬ 
out plumes, and cuirasses of wrought iron, with horse 
pistols in their holsters, and long saber-swords. In the 
morning, they had been the admiration of the whole 


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army, when, at nine o’clock, with trumpets sounding 
and all the bands playing Veillons au salut de Vempire, 
they came in heavy column, one of their batteries on 
their flank, the other at their center, and deployed in 
two ranks between the Genappe road and Frischemont, 
and took their position of battle in this powerful second 
line, so wisely made up by Napoleon, which, having 
at its extreme left the cuirassiers of Kellermann and at 
its extreme right the cuirassiers of Milhaud, had, so to 
speak, two wings of iron. 

Aide-de-camp Bernard brought them the Emperor’s 
order. Ney drew his sword and placed himself at 
their head. The enormous squadrons began to move. 

Then was seen a fearful sight. 

All this cavalry, with sabers drawn, banners waving, 
and trumpets sounding, formed in column by division 
descended with an even movement and as one man— 
with the precision of a bronze battering-ram opening a 
breach—the hill of La Belle-Alliance, sank into that 
formidable depth where so many men had already fallen, 
disappeared in the smoke, then, rising from this valley of 
shadow, reappeared on the other side, still compact and 
serried, mounting at full trot, through a cloud of grape 
emptying itself upon them, the frightful acclivity of mud 
of the plateau of Mont Saint Jean. They rose, serious, 
menacing, imperturbable; in the intervals of the mus¬ 
ketry and artillery could be heard the sound of this 
colossal tramp. Being in two divisions, they formed 
two columns. Wathier’s division had the right,Delord’s 
the left. From a distance they would be taken for two 
immense serpents of steel stretching themselves foward 
the crest of the plateau. 


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129 


Nothing like it had been seen since the taking of the 
grand redoubt at La Moscowa by the heavy cavalry. 
Murat was not there, but Ney was there. It seemed as 
if this mass had become a monster, and had but a single 
mind. Each squadron undulated and swelled like the 
ring of a polyp. They could be seen through the thick 
smoke, as it was broken here and there. It was one 
pell-mell of casques, cries,sabers; a furious bounding of 
horses among the cannon, and the flourish of trumpets, 
a terrible and disciplined tumult; over all, the cuirasses, 
like the scales of a hydra. 

These recitals appear to belong to another age. Some¬ 
thing like this vision appeared, doubtless, in the old 
Orphic epics which tell of centaurs, antique hippan- 
thropes, those titans with human faces and chests like 
horses, whose gallop scaled Olympus—horrible, invul¬ 
nerable, sublime; at once gods and beasts. 

An odd numerical coincidence—twenty-six battalions 
were to receive these twenty-six squadrons. 

Behind the crest of the plateau, under cover of the 
masked battery, the English infantry, formed in thir¬ 
teen squares, two battalions to the square, and upon two 
lines—seven on the first and six on the second—with 
musket to the shoulder, and eye upon their sights, waited 
calm, silent, and immovable. They could not see the 
cuirassiers, and the cuirassiers could not see them. They 
listened to the rising of this tide of men. They heard 
the increasing sound of three thousand horses, the 
alternate and measured striking of their hoofs at full 
trot, the rattling of the cuirasses, the clicking of the 
sabe%, and a sort of fierce roar of the coming host. 

There was a moment of fearful silence; then, suddenly, 
9 


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a long line of raised arms brandishing sabers appeared 
above the crest, with casques, trumpets, and standards, 
and three thousand faces with gray moustaches, crying: 
“Vive l’Empereur!” All this cavalry debouched on the 
plateau, and it was like the beginning of an earthquake. 

All at once, tragic to relate, at the left of the English 
and on our right, the head of the column of cuirassiers 
reared with a frightful clamor. Arrived at the culmi¬ 
nating point of the crest, unmanageable, full of fury, and 
bent upon the extermination of the squares and cannons, 
the cuirassiers saw between themselves and the English 
a ditch, a grave. It was the sunken road of Ohain. 

*lt was a frightful moment. There was the ravine, 
unlooked for, yawning at the very feet of the horses, two 
fathoms deep between its double slope. The second rank 
pushed in the first, the third pushed in the second; the 
horses reared, threw themselves over, fell upon their 
backs, and struggled with their feet in the air, piling up 
and overturning their riders. No power to retreat—the 
whole column was nothing but a projectile. The force 
acquired to crush the English crushed the French. The 
inexorable ravine could not yield until it was filled. 
Riders and horses rolled in together pell-mell, grinding 
each other, making common flesh in this terrible gulf, 
and when this grave was full of living men, the rest 
marched over them and passed on. Almost a third of 
the Dubois’ brigade sank into this abyss. 

Here the loss of the battle began. 

A local tradition, which evidently exaggerates, says 
that two thousand horses and fifteen hundred men were 
buried in the sunken road of Ohain. This undoubtedly 
comprises all the other bodies thrown into this ravine on 
the morrow after the battle. 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


131 


Napoleon, before ordering the charge of Milhaud’s 
cuirassiers, had examined the ground, but could not see 
this hollow road, which did not make even a wrinkle 
on the surface of the plateau. Warned, however, and 
put on his guard by the little white chapel which marks 
its junction with the Nivelles road, he had, probably on 
the contingency of an obstacle, put a question to the 
guide Lacoste. The guide had answered “No.” It may 
almost be said that from the shake of a peasant’s head 
came the catastrophe of Napoleon. 

Still other fatalities must arise. 

Was it possible that Napoleon should win this battle? 
We answer,No. Why? Because of Wellington? Be¬ 
cause of Blucher? No. Because of God. 

For Bonaparte to be conqueror at Waterloo was not 
in the law of the nineteenth century. Another series 
of facts were preparing in which Napoleon had no 
place. The ill-will of events had long been announced. 

It was time that this vast man should fall. 

The excessive weight of this man in human destiny 
disturbed the equilibrium. This individual counted, of 
himself alone, more than the universe besides. These 
plethoras of all human vitality concentrated in a single 
head, the world mounting to the brain of one man, 
would be fatal to civilization if they should endure. 
The moment had come for incorruptible supreme equity 
to look to it. Probably the principles and elements 
upon which regular gravitations in the moral order as 
well as in the material depend began to murmur. 
Reeking blood, overcrowded cemeteries, weeping 
mothers—these are formidable pleaders. When the 
earth is suffering from a surcharge there are mysterious 
moanings from the deeps, which the heavens hear. 


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132 

Napoleon had been impeached before the Infinite, 
and his fall was decreed. 

He vexed God. 

Waterloo is not a battle; it is the change of front of 
the universe. 


SUPPORTING THE GUNS. 

Detroit Free Press. 

Did you ever see a battery take position ? 

It hasn’t the thrill of a cavalry charge, nor the grim¬ 
ness of a line of bayonets moving slowly and determin¬ 
edly on, but there is a peculiar excitement about it that 
makes old veterans rise in the saddle and cheer. 

We have been fighting at the edge of the woods. 
Every cartridge-box has been emptied once and more, 
and a fourth of the brigade has melted away in dead 
and wounded and missing. Not a cheer is heard in the 
whole brigade. We know that we are being driven 
foot by foot, and that when we break back once more, 
the line will go to pieces and the enemy will pour 
through the gap. 

Here comes help! 

Down the crowded highway gallops a battery, with¬ 
drawn from some other position to save ours. The 
field fence is scattered while you could count thirty, and 
the guns rush fo’r the hill behind us. Sjx horses to a 
piece, three riders to each gun. Over dry ditches 
where a farmer would not drive a wagon, through 
clumps of bushes, over logs a foot thick, every horse on 
the gallop, every rider lashing his team and yelling— 
the sight behind us makes us forget the foe in front. 
The guns jump two feet high as the heavy wheels 



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133 


strike rock or log, but not a horse slackens his pace, 
not a cannoneer loses his seat. Six guns, 6ix caissons, 
sixty horses, eighty men, race for the brow of the hill 
as if he who reached it first was to be knighted. 

A moment ago the battery was a confused mob. We 
look again and the six guns are in position, the detached 
horses hurrying away, the ammunition chests open, and 
along our line runs the command: “Give them one 
more volley and fall back to support the guns!” We 
have scarcely obeyed when boom! boom! boom! opens 
the battery, and jets of fire jump down and scorch the 
green trees under which we fought and despaired. 

The shattered old brigade has a chance to breathe for 
the first time in three hours as we form a line of battle 
behind the guns and lie down. What grim, cool fel¬ 
lows these cannoneers are! Every man is a perfect 
machine. Bullets plash dust in their faces, but they do 
not wince. Bullets sing over and around them, but 
they do not dodge. There goes one to the earth, shot 
through the head as he sponged his gun. The machin¬ 
ery loses just one beat — misses just one cog in the 
wheel, and then works away again as before. 

Every gun is using short-fuse shell. The ground 
shakes and trembles—the roar shuts out all sounds from 
a battle-line three miles long, and the shells go shriek¬ 
ing into the swamp to cut trees short off, to mow great 
gaps in the bushes, to hunt out and shatter and mangle 
men until their corpses can not be recognized as human. 
You would think a tornado was howling through the 
forest, followed by billows of fire, and yet men live 

through it_aye! press forward to capture the battery! 

We can hear their shouts as they form for the rush. 


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Now the shells are changed for grape and canister, 
and the guns are served so fast that all reports blend 
into one mighty roar. The shriek of a shell is the 
wickedest sound in war, but nothing makes the flesh 
crawl like the demoniac singing, purring, whistling 
grape-shot and the serpent-like hiss of canister. Men’s 
legs and arms are not shot through, but torn off. Heads 
are torn from bodies and bodies cut in two. A round 
shot or shell takes two men out of the ranks as it 
crashes through. Grape and canister mow a swath and 
pile the dead on top of each other. 

Through the smoke we see a swarm-of men. It is 
not a battle-line, but a mob of men desperate enough to 
bathe their bayonets in the flame of the guns. The 
guns leap from the ground, almost, as they are de¬ 
pressed on the foe—and shrieks and screams and shouts 
blend into one awful and steady cry. Twenty men out 
of the battery are down, and the firing is interrupted. 
The foe accept it as a sign of wavering, and come rush¬ 
ing on. They are not ten feet away when the guns 
give them a last shot. That discharge picks living men 
off their feet and throws them into the swamp, a black¬ 
ened, bloody mass. 

Up now, as the enemy are among the guns! There 
is a silence of ten seconds, and then the flash and roar of 
more than three thousand muskets, and a rush forward 
with bayonets. For what? Neither on the right, nor 
left, nor in front of us is a living foe! There are 
corpses around us which have been struck by three, 
four, and even six bullets, and nowhere on this acre of 
ground is a wounded man! The wheels of the guns 
can not move until the blockade of dead is removed. 


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135 


Men can not pass from caisson to gun without climbing 
over winrows of dead. Every gun and wheel is 
smeared with blood, every foot of grass has its horrible 
stain. 

Historians write of the glory of war. Burial parties 
saw murder where historians saw glory. 


ON THE OTHER TRAIN. 

A Clock's Story. 

“There, Simmons, you blockhead! Why didn’t you 
trot that old woman aboard her train? She’ll have to 
wait here now until the 1105 a. m.” 

“You didn’t tell me.” 

“Yes, I did tell you. ’Twas only your confounded 
stupid carelessness.” 

“She-” 

“She! You fool! What else could you expect of 
her? Probably she hasn’t any wit; besides, she isn’t 
bound on a very jolly journey—got a pass up the road 
to the poor-house. I’ll go and tell her, and if you for¬ 
get her to-night, see if I don’t make mince-meat of 
you!” And our worthy ticket agent shook his fist 
menacingly at his subordinate. 

“You’ve missed your train, marm,’ he remarked, 
coming forward to a queer-looking bundle in the 
corner. 

A trembling hand raised the faded black veil, and 
revealed the sweetest old face I ever saw. 

“Never mind,” said a quivering voice. 

“’Tis only three o’clock now; you’ll have to wait 
until the night train,which doesn’t go up until 1 :o5” 

“Very well, sir; I can wait.” 



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“Wouldn’t you like to go to some hotel? Simmons 
will show you the way.” 

“No, thank you, sir. One place is as good as another 
to me. Besides, I haven’t any money.” 

“Very well,” said the agent, turning away indiffer¬ 
ently. “Simmons will tell you when it’s time.” 

All the afternoon she sat there, so quiet that I thought 
sometimes she must be asleep, but when I looked more 
closely I could see every once in a while a great tear 
rolling down her cheek, which she would wipe away 
hastily with her cotton handkerchief. 

The depot was crowded, and all was bustle and hurry 
until the 9:50 train going east came due; then every 
passenger left except the old lady. It is very rare in¬ 
deed, that anyone takes the night express, and almost 
always after I have struck ten, the depot becomes silent 
and empty. 

The ticket agent put on his great coat, and bidding 
Simmons keep his wits about him for once in his life, 
departed for home. 

But he had no sooner gone than that functionary 
stretched himself out upon the table, as usual, and began 
to snore vociferously. 

Then it was I witnessed such a sight as I never had 
before and never expect to again. 

The fire had gone down—it was a cold night, and the 
wind howled dismally outside. The lamps grew dim 
and flared, casting weird shadows upon the wall. By 
and by I heard a smothered sob from the corner, then 
another. I looked in that direction. She had risen 
from her seat, and oh! the look of agony on the poor 
pinched face. 


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137 


“I can’t believe it,” she sobbed, wringing her thin, 
white hands. “Oh! I can’t believe it! My babies! 
my babies! How often have I held them in my arms and 
kissed them; and how often they used to say back to 
me, <Ise love you, mamma,’ and now, O God! they’ve 
turned against me. Where am I going? To the poor- 
house! No! no! no! I can not! I will not! Oh, 
the disgrace!” 

And, sinking upon her knees, she .sobbed out in 
prayer: 

“O God! spare me this and take me home! O God, 
spare me this disgrace; spare me!” 

The wind rose higher and swept through the crevices, 
icy cold. How it moaned and seemed to sob like some¬ 
thing human that is hurt. I began to shake, but the 
kneeling figure never stirred. The thin shawl had 
dropped from her shoulders unheeded. Simmons 
turned over and drew his heavy blanket more closely 
about him. 

Oh, how cold! Only one lamp remained, burning 
dimly; the other two had gone out for want of oil. I 
could hardly see, it was so dark. 

At last she became more quiet and ceased to moan. 
Then I grew drowsy, and kind of lost the run of things 
after I had struck twelve, when someone entered the 
depot with a bright light. I started up. It was the 
brightest light I ever saw, and seemed to fill the room 
full of radiant glory. I could see ’twas a man. He 
walked to the kneeling figure and touched her upon 
the shoulder. She started up and turned her face wildly 
around. I heard him say: 

“ ’Tis train time, ma’am. Come!” 


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“I’m ready,” she whispered. 

“Then give me your pass, ma’am.” 

She reached him a worn, old book, whicfi he took 
and from it read aloud: 

“Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden and I will give you rest.” 

“That’s the pa„ss over our road, ma’am. Are you 
ready ?” 

The light died away, and darkness fell in its place. 
My hand touched the stroke of one. Simmons awoke 
with a start and snatched his lantern. The whistle 
sounded down brakes; the train was due. He ran to 
the corner and shook the woman. 

“Wake up, marrfi; ’tis train time.” 

But she never heeded. He gave one look at that 
white, set face, and, dropping his lantern, fled. 

The up-train halted, the conductor shouted “All 
aboard,” but no one made a move that way. 

The next morning, when the ticket agent came, he 
found her frozen to death. They whispered among 
themselves, and the coroner made out the verdict 
“apoplexy,” and it was in some way hushed up. 

They laid her out in the depot, and advertised for 
her friends, but no one came. So after the second day, 
they buried her. 

The last look on the sweet old face, lit up with a 
smile so unearthly, I keep with me yet;* and when I 
think of the occurrence of that night, I know she went 
out on the other train, that never stopped at the poor- 
house. 


—. -=* 




BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


139 


THE BELLS. 

Edgar A. Poe. 

Hear the sledges with the bells— 

Silver bells! 

What a world of merriment their melody foretells! 

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, 

In the icy air of night! 

While the stars that oversprinkle 

All the heavens, seem to twinkle 
With a crystalline delight; 

Keeping time, time, time, 

In a sort of Runic rhyme, 

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells 

From the bells, bells, bells, bells, 

Bells, bells, bells— 

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. 

Hear the mellow wedding-bells— 

Golden bells! 

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! 

Through the balmy air of night 

How they ring out their delight! 

From the molten-golden notes, 

And all in tune, 

What a liquid ditty floats 
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats 
On the moon! 

Oh, from out the sounding cells, 

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! 

How it swells! 

How it dwells 
On the Future! how it tells 
Of the rapture that impels 


J . 


140 


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To the swinging and the ringing 
Of the bells, bells, bells— 

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 

Bells, bells, bells— 

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells! 

Hear the loud alarum bells— 

Brazen bells! 

What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! 

In the startled ear of night 

How they scream out their affright! 

Too much horrified to speak, 

They can only shriek, shriek, 

Out of tune, 

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, 

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire 
Leaping higher, higher, higher, 

With a desperate desire, 

And a resolute endeavor, 

Now—now to sit or never, 

By the side of the pale-faced moon. 

Oh, the bells, bells, bells! 

WhaJ a tale their terror tells 
Of despair! 

How they clang, and clash, and roar! 

What a horror they outpour 
On the bosom of the palpitating air! 

Yet the ear, it fully knows, 

By the swanging 
And the clanging, 

How the danger ebbs and flows; 

Yet the ear distinctly tells, 

In the jangling 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


141 


And the wrangling, 

How the danger sinks and swells, 

By the sinking and the swelling in the anger of the bells, 
Of the bells— 

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 

Bells, bells, bells— 

In the clamor and the clangor of the bells! 

Hear the tolling of the bells— 

Iron bells! 

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! 
In the silence of the night, 

How we shiver with affright 
At the melancholy menace of their tone! 

For every sound that floats 
From the rust within their throats 
Is a groan. 

And the people—ah, the people— 

They that dwell up in the steeple, 

All alone! 

And who, tolling, tolling, tolling, 

In that muffled monotone, 

Feel a glory in so rolling 

On the human heart a stone— 

They are neither man nor woman— 

They are neither brute nor human— 

They are Ghouls; 

And their king it is who tolls; 

And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls, 

A paean from the bells! 

And his merry bosom swells 
With the paean of the bells! 


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And he dances and he yells; 

Keeping time, time, time, * 

In a sort of Runic rhyme, 

To the paean of the bells— 

Of the bells; 

Keeping time, time, time, 

In a sort of Runic rhyme, 

To the throbbing of the bells— 

Of the bells, bells, bells, 

To the sobbing of the bells; 

Keeping time, time, time, 

As he knells, knells, knells, 

In a happy Runic rhyme, 

To the rolling of the bells— 

Of the bells, bells, bells— 

To the tolling of the bells, 

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells— 

Bells, bells, bells, 

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. 


CONNOR. 

“ To the memory of Patrick Connor this simple stone was erected 
by his fellow-workmen.” 

Those words you may read any day upon a white 
slab in a cemetery not many miles from New York; 
but you might read them a hundred times without 
guessing at the little tragedy they indicate, without 
knowing the humble romance which ended with the 
placing of that stone above the dust of one poor, hum¬ 
ble man. 

In his shabby frieze jacket and mud-laden brogans, 
he was scarcely an attractive object as he walked into 



BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


143 


Mr. Bawne’s great tin and hardware shop one day, and 
presented himself at the counter with an: 

“ I’ve been towld ye advertised for hands, yer 
honor.” 

u Fully supplied, my man,” said Mr. Bawne, not 
lifting his head from his account-book. 

“ I’d work faithfully, sir, and take low wages till I 
could do better; and I’d learn—I would that.” 

It was an Irish brogue, and Mr. Bawne always de¬ 
clared that he never would employ an incompetent 
hand. Yet the tone attracted him. He turned brisklj’, 
and, with his pen behind his ear, addressed the man, 
who was only one of fifty who had answered his 
advertisement for four workmen that morning. “ What 
makes you expect to learn faster than other folks ? Are 
you any smarter?” 

“ I’ll not say that,” said the man; “ but I’d be wish¬ 
ing to; and that would make it easier.” 

“ Are you used to the work?” 

“ I’ve clone a bit of it.” 

“ Much?” 

“ No, yer honor; I’ll tell no lie. Tim O’Toole hadn’t 
the like of this place; but I know a bit about tins.” 

“ You are too old for an apprentice, and you’d be in 
the way, I calculate,” said Mr. Bawne, looking at the 
brawny arms and bright eyes that promised strength 
and intelligence. “ Besides I know your countrymen— 
lazy, good-for-nothing fellows who never do their best. 
No, I’ve been taken in by Irish hands before, and I 
won’t have another.” 

u The Virgin will have to be after bringing them over 
to me in her two arms, thin,” said the man despairingly, 


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“for I’ve tramped all the day for the last fortnight, 
and niver a job can I get; and that’s the last penny 
I have, yer honor, and it’s but a half one.” 

As he spoke he spread his palm open, with an Eng¬ 
lish halfpenny in it. 

“ Bring whom over? ” asked Mr. Bawne, arrested by 
the odd speech, as he turned upon his heel and turned 
back again. 

“Jist Nora and Jamesy.” 

“ Who are they?” 

“The wan’s me wife, the other me child,” said the 
man. “ O masther, just try me! How’ll I bring ’em 
over to me, if no one will give me a job? I want to be 
aiming, and the whole big city seems against it, and 
me with arms like them.” 

He bared his arms to the shoulder as he spoke, and 
Mr. Bawne looked at them, and then at his face. 

“ I’ll hire you for a week,” he said; “ and now, as 
it’s noon, go down to the kitchen and tell the girl to get 
you some dinner. A hungry man can’t work.” 

With an Irish blessing, the new hand obeyed, while 
Mr. Bawne, untying his apron, went upstairs to his 
own meal. Suspicious as he was of the new hand’s 
integrity and ability, he was agreeably disappointed. 
Connor worked hard, and actually learned fast. At the 
end of the week he was engaged permanently, and soon 
was the best workman in the shop. 

He was a great talker, but not fond of drink or wast¬ 
ing money. As his wages grew, he hoarded every 
penny, and wore the same shabby clothes in which he 
had made his first appearance. 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 145 

“ Beer costs money,” he said one day, “ and ivery 
cint I spind puts off the bringing Nora andjamesy 
over; and as for clothes, them I have must do me. 
Bettei no coat to my back than no wife and boy by my 
fireside; and anyhow, it’s slow work saving.” 

It was slow work, but he kept at it all the same. 
Other men, thoughtless and full of fun, tried to make 
him drink; made a jest of his saving habits, coaxed him 
to accompany them to places of amusement, or to share 
their Sunday frolics. 

All in vain. Connor liked beer, liked fun, liked 
companionship; but he would not delay that long- 
looked-for bringing of Nora over, and was not “ mane 
enough ” to accept favor of others. He kept his way, 
a martyr to his one great wish, living on little, working 
at night on any extra job that he could earn a few shil¬ 
lings by, running errands in his noon-tide hours of rest, 
and talking to anyone who would listen to him of his 
one great hope, and of Nora and of little Jamesy. 

At first the men, who prided themselves on being all 
Americans and on turning out the best work in the 
city, made a sort of butt of Connor, whose “ wild Irish ” 
ways and verdancy were indeed often laughable. But 
he won their hearts at last, and when one day, mount¬ 
ing a work-bench, he shook his little bundle, wrapped 
in a red kerchief, before their eyes and shouted: « Look, 
boys! I’ve got the whole at last! I’m going to bring 
Nora and Jamesy over at last! Whoroo! I’ve got 
it!” all felt sympathy in his joy, and each grasped his 
great hand in cordial congratulations, and one proposed 
to treat all round, and drink a good voyage to Nora. 


10 


146 BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 

They parted in a merry mood, most of the men going 
to comfortable homes. But poor Connor’s resting- 
place was a poor lodging-house, where he shared a 
crazy garret with four other men, and in the joy of his 
heart the poor fellow exhibited his handkerchief, with 
his hard-earned savings tied up in a wad in the middle, 
before he put it under his pillow and fell asleep. 

When he awakened in the morning, he found his 
treasure gone; some villain, more contemptible than 
most bad men, had robbed him. 

At first Connor could not believe it lost. He searched 
every corner of the room, shook his quilt and blankets, 
and begged those about him to “ quit joking and give it 
Back.” 

But at last he realized the truth. 

“Is any man that bad that it’s thaved from me?” he 
asked, in a breathless way. “Boys, is any man that 
bad?” And someone answered: “No doubt of it, 
Connor. It’s sthole.” 

Then Connor put his head down on his hands and 
lifted up his voice and wept. It was one of the sights 
which men never forget. It seemed more than he 
could bear, to have Nora and his child “put,” as he ex¬ 
pressed it, “months away from him again.” 

But when he went to work that day it seemed to all 
who saw him that he had picked up a new determina¬ 
tion. His hands were never idle. His face seemed to 
say: “I’ll have Nora with me yet.” 

At noon he scratched out a letter, blotted and very 
strangely scrawled, telling Nora what had happened; 
and those who observed him noticed that he had no 
meat with his dinner. Indeed, from that moment he 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


147 


lived on bread, potatoes, and cold water, and worked as 
few men ever worked before. It grew to be the talk 
of the shop, and, now that sympathy was excited, every¬ 
one wanted to help Connor. Jobs were thrown in his 
way; kind words and friendly wishes helped him 
mightily; but no power could make him share the food 
or drink of any other workman. It seemed a sort of 
charity to him. 

Still he was helped along. A present from Mr. 
Bawne at pay-day “set Nora a week nearer,” as he 
said, and this and that and the other added to the little 
hoard. It grew faster than the first, and Connor’s 
burden was not so heavy. At last, before he hoped*it, 
he was once more able to say: “I’m going to bring 
them over,” and to show his handkerchief, in which, as 
before, he tied up his earnings—this time, however, only 
to his friends. Cautious among strangers, he hid the 
treasure, and kept his vest buttoned over it night and 
day, until the tickets were bought and sent. Then 
every man, woman, and child, capable of hearing or 
understanding, knew that Nora and her baby were 
coming. 

There was John Jones, who had more of the brute 
in his composition than usually falls to the lot of man— 
even he, who had coolly hurled his hammer at an 
offender’s head, missing him by a hair’s breadth, would 
spend ten minutes of the noon hour in reading the Irish 
news to Connor. There was Tom Barker, the meanest 
man among the number, who had never been known 
to give anything to anyone before, absolutely bartered 
an old jacket for a pair of gilt vases which a peddler 
brought in his basket to the shop, and presented them to 


148 


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Connor for his Nora’s mantel-piece. And there was 
idle Dick, the apprentice, who actually worked two 
hours on Connor’s work when illness kept the Irishman 
at home one day. Connor felt this kindness, and 
returned it whenever it was in his power, and the days 
flew by and brought at last a letter from his wife. 

“She would start as he desired, and she was well, and 
so was the boy, and might the Lord bring them safely 
to each other’s arms, and bless them who had been so 
kind to him.” That was the substance of the epistle, 
which Connor proudly assured his fellow-workmen 
Nora wrote herself. She had lived at service as a girl, 
with a certain good old lady, who had given her the 
items of an education, which Connor told upon his 
fingers. “The radin’, that’s one; and the writin’, that’s 
three; and moreover, she knows all that a woman can.” 
Then he looked up with tears in his eyes, and asked: 
“Do you wondher the time seems long between me 
an’ her, boys?” 

So it was. Nora at the dawn of day—Nora at noon 
—Nora at night—until the news came that the Stormy 
Petrel had come to port, and Connor, breathless and 
pale with excitement, flung his cap in the air and 
shouted. 

It happened on a holiday afternoon, and half-a-dozen 
men were ready to go with Connor to the steamer and 
give his wife a greeting. Her little home was ready. 
Mr. Bawne’s own servant had put it in order, and 
Connor took one peep at it before he started. 

“She hadn’t the like of that in the old counthry,” he 
said, “but she’ll know how to keep them tidy.” 




BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


149 


Then he led the way toward the dock where the 
steamer lay, and at a pace that made it hard for the rest 
to follow him. The spot was reached at last; a crowd 
of vehicles blockaded the street; a group of emigrants 
came thronging up; fine cabin passengers were stepping 
into cabs, and drivers, porters, and all manner of em¬ 
ployes were yelling and shouting in the usual manner. 
Nora would wait on board for her husband—he knew 
that. 

The little group made their way into the vessel at 
last, and there, amid those who sat watching for coming 
friends, Connor searched for the two so dear to him— 
patiently at first, eagerly but patiently, but by-and-by 
growing anxious and excited. 

“She would never go alone,” he said; “she’d be lost 
entirely; I bade her wait, but I don’t see her, boys; I 
think she’s not in it.” 

“Why don’t you see the captain?” asked one, and 
Connor jumped at the suggestion. In a few minutes he 
stood before a portly, rubicund man, who nodded to 
him kindly. 

“I am looking for my wife, yer honor,” said Connor, 
“and I can’t find her.” 

“Perhaps she’s gone ashore,” said the captain. 

“I bade her wait,” said Connor. 

“Women don’t always do as they are bid, you know,” 
said the captain. 

“Nora would,” said Connor; “but maybe she was 
left behind. Maybe she didn’t come. I somehow 
think she didn’t.” 

At the name of Nora the captain started. In a 
moment he asked: “What is your name?” 


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“Pat Connor,” said the man. 

“And your wife’s name was Nora?” 

“That’s her name, and the boy with her is Jamesv, 
yer honor,” said Connor. 

The captain looked at Connor’s friends—they looked 
at the captain. Then he said, huskily: “Sit down, my 
man; I’ve got something to tell you.” 

“She’s left behind?” said Connor 

“She sailed with us,” said the captain. 

“Where is she?” asked Connor. 

The captain made no answer. 

“My man,” he said, “we all have our trials; God 
sends them. Yes—Nora started with us.” 

Connor said nothing. He was looking at the captain 
now, white to his lips. 

“It’s been a sickly season,” said the captain. “We 
have had illness on board—the cholera. You know 
that.” 

“I didn’t. I can’t read; they kept it from me,” said he. 

“We didn’t want to frighten him,” said one, in a half 
whisper. 

“You know how long we lay at quarantine?” 

“The ship I came in did that,” said Connor. “Did 
ye say Nora went ashore? Ought I to be looking for 
her, captain?” 

“Many died; many children,” went on the captain. 
“When we were half-way here your boy was taken 
sick.” 

“Jamesy!” gasped Connor. 

“His mother watched him night and day,” said the 
captain, “and we did all we could, but at last he died; 
only one of many. There were five buried that day. 


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But it broke my heart to see the mother looking out 
upon the water. ‘It’s his father I think of,’ said she; 
‘he’s longing to see poor Jamesy.’” 

Connor groaned. 

“Keep up if you can, my man,” said the captain. “I 
wish anyone else had it to tell rather than I. That 
night Nora was taken ill also; she grew worse fast. In 
the morning she called me to her. ‘Tell Connor I died 
thinking of him,’ she said, ‘and tell him to meet me.’ 
And my man, God help you, she never said anything 
more—in an hour she was gone.” 

Connor had risen. He stood up, trying to steady 
himself, looking at the captain with his eyes dry as two 
stones. Then he turned to his friends. 

“I’ve got my death, boys,” he said, and then dropped 
to the deck like a log. 

They raised him and bore him away. In an hour he 
was at home on the little bed which had been made 
ready for Nora, weary with her long voyage. There, 
at last, he opened his eyes. Old Mr. Bawne bent over 
him; he had been summoned by the news, and the 
room was full of Connor’s fellow-workmen. 

“Better, Connor?” asked the old man. 

“A dale,” said Connor. “It’s aisy now; I’ll be with 
her soon. And look ye, masther; I’ve learnt one thing. 
God is good; He wouldn’t let me bring Nora over to 
me, but He’s takin’ me over to her and Jamesy—over the 
river. Don’t you see it, and her standin’ on the other 
side to welcome me?” 

And with these words Connor stretched out his arms 
—perhaps he did see Nora—Heaven only knows— 
and so died. 


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THE FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 

T. E. Howard. 

The overthrow of the republic was owing to the 
degeneracy of the Roman people, even more than to 
the craft of the heartless Octavius. The chief source 
of this unhappy degeneracy was the wealth which was 
forced from the nations of the world and made to center 
in Italy and in the city of Rome. This wealth brought 
ease and comfort, ease and comfort brought luxury, 
luxury brought delicacy, softness, effeminacy, weakness. 
Rather than be at the trouble of governing themselves, 
the depraved people left that trying matter in the hands 
of unprincipled men. 

Another cause of national decay was the loss of 
religious belief among the people. For various 
reasons, they no longer believed in the gods of the early 
Romans. They became unconcerned for the future, 
and therefore reckless of the present life. No people 
but a religious one can long remain free. For, refusing 
to care for the life to come, they make up their minds 
to have all the selfish pleasure possible in this. The 
foundation of all public virtue is gone, and the people 
can no longer exist without a master, and a brutal mas¬ 
ter too; for they have, as it were, become brutes them¬ 
selves, and can be governed only in a brutal way. 

A third cause of Roman degradation was the 
abject condition of a large portion of the people. 
About one-fourth of them were slaves. It is perhaps 
possible to conceive of a good man’s holding slaves and 
still remaining good himself; but, in general, to give 
one man complete control over another is to brutalize 
both—to make a brutal master of one, a brutal slave of 


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the other. And such, too often, was the relation 
between the Roman master and the Roman slave. In 
their case, the cruelty of the master and the wretched¬ 
ness of the slave were much increased by the fact that 
the slaves were captives taken in battle, or the children 
of these captives, and to the power of the master over 
the slave was added the rancor of enemies, to say noth¬ 
ing of the contempt in which the Romans held all out¬ 
side barbarians. What must have hardened the hearts 
of these Roman masters very much is the fact that the 
slaves were not distinguished from them by color or 
any other mark, except their state of servitude. Man 
hates those whom he has wronged, and the more nearly 
the wronged person is connected with himself the more 
he hates him. 

The last cause that I shall mention which brought 
about the loss of the Roman character was the condi¬ 
tion of the Roman women. It has been said that the 
manner in which a nation treats its women is a sure 
index of its civilization. If man treats woman as a 
companion, as a helpmeet, one who is to assist him in 
his labors, as he is to assist her, each doing what is most 
suitable to the nature of each—woman engaged in the 
lighter labors because her strength is less, man in the 
more severe because his strength is greater, each mak¬ 
ing the other happier, nobler, and better—then is the 
nation civilized, happy, good. If, however, man uses 
his strength to enslave woman and make her his 
drudge, then both become brutish—he a tyrant and she 
a servant, and the nation—or rather the people, for 
there is then no nation—becomes savage and barbarous. 
And if man does neither of these, but treats woman as a 


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plaything, dresses her up as a doll to look at, then both 
become corrupt, and the nation becomes weak, effemi¬ 
nate, deprived of sterling virtue. In Rome, woman 
among the poor was treated as a slave, among the rich 
as a plaything; consequently, the populace were im- 
bruted, savage, and were only kept from rushing head¬ 
long into barbarism by being part of the strong old 
fabric of the nation; while the rich were sensual, 
effeminate, and no longer worthy of their proud title 
of lords of the earth. By such means did the godlike 
Romans prepare the way for their own enslavement. 

Augustus, the first, and in many respects the great¬ 
est, of the emperors, was in some measure the type of 
them all. He advanced to the throne through a sea 
of the best blood of the Roman republic. Afterward 
he tried to wash out the stain of this blood, but it has 
clung to his garments to this day, and will do so for¬ 
ever. As all his crimes had been committed under the 
name of Octavius, he changed that name for Augustus, 
or the Grand One. But although the Roman people, 
and the world after them, have admired the grandeur 
of Augustus, yet they have not forgotten the cold¬ 
blooded cruelty of Octavius. If he was renowned as 
the patron of the Splendid names of the golden age of 
Roman literature, he was no less despicable as one who 
had consented to the death of his friend, a greater than 
any of that Augustan age. The blood of the murdered 
Cicero yet stains the imperial robes of the crowned 
Augustus. One after another, in the first and second 
triumvirate, in the wars of Caesar and Pompey, of Bru¬ 
tus and Antony, of Antony and Octavius, by murderous 
proscription and in open battle, fell all the great men of 


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the last days of the Roman republic. It is true that in 
the absence of a virtuous people there could no longer 
be a republic, but it is also true that the cruelties of 
Octavius, surnamed Augustus, left no Roman alive who 
was capable of standing at the head of the republic, 
even if the republic had been a possibility. 

Thus was the Roman empire established in blood 
and crime, and over a people fallen from their ancient 
renown and no longer either able or worthy to govern 
themselves. 


LOSS OF THE ARCTIC. 

Beecher. 

It was autumn. Hundreds had wended their way 
from pilgrimages—from Rome and its treasures of dead 
art and its.glory of living nature; from the sides of the 
Switzer’s mountains and from the capitals of various 
nations—all of them saying in their hearts: “We will 
wait for the September gales to have done with their 
equinoctial fury, and then we will embark; we will 
slide across the appeased ocean, and in the gorgeous 
month of October we will greet our longed-for native 
land, and our heart-loved homes.” 

And so the throng streamed along from Berlin, from 
Paris, from the Orient, converging upon London, still 
hastening toward the welcome ship, and narrowing 
every day the circle of engagements and preparations. 
They crowded aboard. Never had the Arctic borne 
such a host of passengers, nor passengers so nearly 
related to so many of us. The hour was come. The 
signal-ball fell at Greenwich. It was noon also at 
Liverpool. The anchors were weighed; the great hull 



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swayed to the current; the national colors streamed 
abroad, as if themselves instinct with life and national 
sympathy. The bell strikes; the wheels revolve; the 
signal-gun beats its echoes in upon every structure along 
the shore, and the Arctic glides joyfully forth from the 
Mersey, and turns her prow to the winding channel, 
and begins her homeward run. The pilot stood at the 
wheel, and men saw him. Death sat upon the prow, 
and no eye beheld him. Whoever stood at the wheel 
in all the voyage, Death was the pilot that steered the 
craft, and none knew it. He neither revealed his 
presence nor whispered his errand. 

And so hope was effulgent, and lithe gayety dis¬ 
ported itself, and joy was with every guest. Amid all 
the inconveniences of the voyage, there was still that 
which hushed every murmur—“Home is not-far away.” 
And every morning it was still one night nearer home! 
Eight days had passed. They beheld that distant bank 
of mist that forever haunts the vast shallows of New¬ 
foundland. Boldly they made it; and plunging in, its 
pliant wreaths wrapped them about. They shall never 
emerge. The last sunlight has flashed from that deck. 
The last voyage is done to ship and passengers. At 
noon there came noiselessly stealing from the north 
that fated instrument of destruction. In that mysterious 
shroud, that vast atmosphere of mist, both steamers 
were holding their way with rushing prow and roaring 
wheels, but invisible. 

At a league’s distance, unconscious; and at nearer 
approach, unwarned; within hail and bearing right 
toward each other, unseen, unfelt, till, in a moment 
more, emerging from the gray mists, the ill-omened 


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Vesta dealt her deadly stroke to the Arctic. The 
death-blow was scarcely felt along the mighty hull. 
She neither reeled nor shivered. Neither commander 
nor officers deemed that they had suffered harm. 
Prompt upon humanity, the brave Luce (let his name 
be ever spoken with admiration and respect) ordered 
away his boat with the first officer to inquire if the 
stranger had suffered harm. As Gourley went over 
the ship’s side, oh, that some good angel had called to 
the brave commander in the words of Paul on a like 
occasion: “Except these abide in the ship, ye can not be 
saved.” 

They departed, and with them the hope of the ship, 
for now the waters, gaining upon the hold and rising 
upon the fires, revealed the mortal blow. Oh, had now 
that stern, brave mate, Gourley, been on deck, whom 
the sailors were wont to mind—had he stood to execute 
efficiently the commander’s will—we may believe that 
we should not have had to blush for the cowardice and 
recreancy of the crew nor weep for the untimely dead. 
But, apparently, each subordinate officer lost all presence 
of mind, then courage, and so honor. In a wild scramble, 
that ignoble mob of firemen, engineers, waiters, and 
crew rushed for the boats, and abandoned the helpless 
women, children, and men to the mercy of the deep! 
Four hours there were from the catastrophe of collision 
to the catastrophe of sinking! 

Oh, what a burial was here! Not as when one is 
borne from his home, among weeping throngs, and 
gently carried to the green fields and laid peacefully 
beneath the turf and flowers, No priest stood to pro¬ 
nounce a burial-service. It was an ocean-grave. The 


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mists alone shrouded the burial-place. No spade pre¬ 
pared the grave nor sexton filled up the hollowed 
earth. Down, down they sank, and the quick returning 
waters smoothed out every ripple, jind left the sea as if 
it had not been. 


DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII. 

Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton. 

The cloud, which had scattered so deep a murkiness 
over the day, had now settled into a solid and impene¬ 
trable mass. It resembled less even the thickest gloom 
of a night in the open air than the close and blind dark, 
ness of some narrow room. But, in proportion as the 
blackness gathered, did the lightnings around Vesuvius 
increase in their vivid and scorching glare. Nor was 
their horrible beauty confined to the usual hues of fire; 
no rainbow ever rivaled their varying and prodigal 
dyes. Now brightly blue as the most azure-depth of a 
southern sky—now of a livid and snake-like green, 
darting restlessly to and fro as the folds of an enormous 
serpent—now of a lurid and intolerable crimson, gush¬ 
ing forth through the columns of smoke, far and wide- 
and lighting up the whole city from arch to arch—then 
suddenly dying into a sickly paleness, like the ghost of 
their own life! 

In the pauses of the showers you heard the rumbling 
of the earth beneath, and the groaning waves of the 
tortured sea; or, lower still, and audible but to the 
watch of intensest fear, the grinding and hissing mur¬ 
mur of the escaping gases, through the chasms of the 
distant mountain. Sometimes the cloud appeared to 



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159 


break from its solid mass, and, by the lightning, to 
assume quaint and vast mimicries of human or of mon¬ 
ster shapes, striding across the gloom, hurtling one 
upon the other, and vanishing swiftly into the turbulent 
abyss of shade; so that, to the eyes and fancies of the 
affrighted wanderers, the unsubstantial vapors were as 
the bodily forms of gigantic foes—the agents of terror 
and death. 

The ashes in many places were already knee-deep; 
and the boiling showers which came from the steaming 
breath of the volcano forced their way into the houses, 
bearing with them a strong and suffocating vapor. In 
some places immense fragments of rock, hurled upon 
the house roofs, bore down along the streets masses of 
confused ruin, which yet more and more, with every 
hour, obstructed the way; and, as the day advanced, 
the motion of the earth was more sensibly felt; the foot¬ 
ing seemed to slide and creep, nor could chariot or litter 
be kept steady, even on the most level ground. 

Sometimes the huger stones, striking against each 
other as they fell, broke into countless fragments, 
emitting sparks of fire, which caught whatever was 
combustible within their reach; and along the plain 
beyond the city the darkness was now terribly relieved; 
for several houses, and even vineyards, had. been set on 
flames; and at various intervals the fires rose sullenly 
and fiercely against the solid gloom. To add to this 
partial relief of the darkness, the citizens had, here and 
there, in the more public places, such as the porticos of 
temples and the entrances to the forum, endeavored to 
place rows of torches; but these rarely continued long. 
The showers and the winds extinguished them, Ind the 


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sudden darkness into which their fitful light was con¬ 
verted had something in it doubly terrible and doubly 
impressive on the impotence of human hopes—the lesson 
of despair. 

Frequently, by the momentary light of these torches, 
parties of fugitives encountered each other, some hur¬ 
rying toward the sea, others flying from the sea back 
to the land; for the ocean had retreated rapidly from 
the shore. An utter darkness lay over it, and upon its 
groaning and tossing waves the storm of cinders and 
rocks fell without the protection which the streets and 
roofs afforded to the land. Wild, haggard, ghastly 
with supernatural fears, these groups encountered each 
other, but without the leisure to speak, to consult, to 
advise; for the showers fell now frequently, though 
not continuously, extinguishing the lights, which showed 
to each band the death-like faces of the other, and hur- 
rying all to seek refuge beneath the nearest shelter. 

The whole elements of civilization were broken up. 
Ever and anon, by the flickering lights, you saw the 
thief hastening by the most solemn authorities of the 
law, laden with, and fearfully chuckling over, the prod¬ 
uce of his sudden gains. If, in the darkness, wife was 
separated from husband or parent from child, vain was 
the hope of reunion. Each hurried blindly and con¬ 
fusedly on. Nothing in all the various and complicated 
machinery of social life was left save the primal law of 
self-preservation. 



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161 


WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE. 

George P. Morris. 

Woodman, spare that tree! 

Touch not a single bough! 

In youth it sheltered me, 

And I’ll protect it now. 

’Twas my forefather’s hand 
That placed it near his cot; 

There, woodman, let it stand; 

Thy axe shall harm it not! 

That old, familiar tree, 

Whose glory and renown 
Are spread o’er land and sea— 

And wouldst thou hew it down? 
Woodman, forbear thy stroke! 

Cut not its earth-bound ties; 

Oh, spare that aged oak, 

Now towering to the skies! 

When but an idle boy 

I sought its grateful shade; 

In all their gushing joy 

Here, too, my sisters played. 

My mother kissed me here; 

My father pressed my hand— 

Forgive this foolish tear, 

But let that old oak stand! 

My heart-strings round thee cling, 

Close as thy bark, old friend! 

Here shall the wild-bird sing, 

And still thy branches bend. 

Old tree, the storm still brave! 

11 


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And, woodman, leave the spot; 
While I’ve a hand to save, 

Thy axe shall harm it not! 


ARNOLD THE TRAITOR. 

Oeorge Lippard. 

Benedict Arnold sailed from our shores and came 
back no more. From that time forth, wherever he 
went,, three whispered words followed him, singing 
through his ears into his heart — Arnold, the 
Traitor. 

When he stood beside his king in the House of Lords 
the weak old man whispered in familiar tones to his 
gorgeously attired general; a whisper crept through 
the thronged Senate; faces were turned, fingers ex¬ 
tended, and as the whisper deepened into a murmur, 
one venerable lord arose and stated that he loved his 
sovereign, but could not speak to him while by his side 
there stood —Arnold, the Traitor. 

He went to the theater, parading his warrior form 
amid the fairest flowers of British nobility and beauty, 
but no sooner was his visage seen than the whole audi¬ 
ence rose—the lord in his cushioned seat, the vagrant of 
London in the gallery—they rose together, while from 
the pit to the dome echoed the cry: “Arnold, the 
Traitor!” 

When he issued from his gorgeous mansion the 
liveried servant that ate his bread, and earned it, too, 
by menial offices, whispered in contempt to his fellow- 
lackey as he took his position behind his master’s car¬ 
riage: “Benedict Arnold, the Traitor.” 



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One day, in a shadowy room, a mother and two 
daughters, all attired in the weeds of mourning, were 
grouped in a sad circle, gazing upon a picture shrouded 
in crape. A visitor now advanced; the mother took 
his card from the hand of the servant, and the daugh¬ 
ters heard his name. “Go!” said that mother, rising 
with a flushed face, while a daughter took each hand— 
“Go! and tell the man that my threshold can never be 
crossed by the murderer of my son—by Arnold, the 
Traitor.” 

Grossly insulted in a public place, he appealed to the 
company—noble lords and reverend men were there— 
and, breasting his antagonist with his fierce brow, he 
spat full in his face. His antagonist was a man of tried 
courage. He coolly wiped the saliva from his cheek. 
“ Time may spit upon me, but I never can pollute my 
sword by killing— Arnold, the Traitor!” 

He left London. «He engaged in commerce. His 
ships were on the ocean, his warehouses in Nova Sco¬ 
tia, his plantations in the West Indies. One night his 
warehouse was burned to ashes. The entire popula¬ 
tion of St.John’s—accusing the owner of acting the 
part of incendiary to his own property, in order to 
defraud the insurance companies—assembled in that 
British town,in sight of his very window, hung an effigy ? 
inscribed with these words: “Arnold, the Trai¬ 
tor.” 

When the Island of Guadaloupe was retaken by the 
French, he was among the prisoners. He was put 
aboard a French prison-ship in the harbor. His money 
—thousands of yellow guineas, accumulated through 
the course of years—was about his person. Afraid of 


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his own name, he called himself John Anderson, the 
name once assumed by John Andr£. He deemed hirru 
self unknown, but the sentinel, approaching him, whis¬ 
pered that he was known and in great danger. He 
assisted him to escape, even aided him to secure his 
treasure in an empty cask, but as the prisoner, gliding 
down the side of the ship, pushed his raft toward the 
shore, that sentinel looked after him, and in broken 
English sneered: “Arnold, the Traitor.” 

There was a day when Talleyrand arrived in Havre, 
hotfoot from Paris. It was in the darkest hour of the 
French Revolution. Pursued by the bloodhounds of 
the Reign of Terror, stripped of every wreck of prop¬ 
erty or power, Talleyrand secured a passage to Amer¬ 
ica in a ship about to sail. He was going a beggar and 
a wanderer to a strange land to earn his bread by daily 
labor. 

“Is there any American gentjeman staying at your 
house?” he asked the landlord of his hotel. “I am 
about to cross the water, and would like a letter to 
some person of influence in the New World.” 

The landlord hesitated for a moment, and then replied: 

“There is a gentleman upstairs, either from America 
or Britain, but whether American or Englishman I 
can not tell.” 

He pointed the way, and Talleyrand—who in his life 
was Bishop, Prince, Prime Minister—ascended the 
stairs; a venerable supplicant, he stood before the 
stranger’s door, knocked and entered. 

In the far corner of a dimly-lighted room sat a gen¬ 
tleman of some fifty years, his arms folded, and his 
head bowed on his breast. From a window directly 


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opposite, a flood of light poured over his forehead. 
His eyes, looking from beneath the downcast brows, 
gazed in Talleyrand’s face with a peculiar and searching 
expression. His face was striking in its outline; the 
mouth and chin indicative of an iron will. His form, 
vigorous even with the snows of fifty winters, was clad 
in adark but rich and distinguished costume. Talleyrand 
advanced—stated that he was a fugitive—and, under the 
impression that the gentleman before him was an 
American, he solicited his kind offices. He poured 
forth his story in eloquent French and broken English. 

“I am a wanderer—an exile. I am forced to fly to the 
New World, without a friend or a hope. You are an 
American? Give me, then, I beseech you, a letter of 
introduction to some friend of yours, so that I may be 
enabled to earn my bread. I am willing to toil in any 
manner. The scenes of Paris have filled me with such 
horror that a life of labor would be a paradise to a 
career of luxury in France. You will give me a letter 
to one of your friends? A gentleman like you has, 
doubtless, many friends.” 

The strange gentleman rose. With a look that 
Talleyrand never forgot, he retreated toward the door of 
the next chamber, still downcast, his eyes still looking 
from beneath his darkened brows. He spoke as he 
retreated backward. His voice was full of meaning: 

“lam the only man born in the New World that can 
raise his hand to God and say: ‘I have not one 
FRIEND-NOT ONE-IN ALL AMERICA!’” 

Talleyrand never forgot the overwhelming sadness of 
the look which accompanied these words. 


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“ Who are you?” he cried, as the strange man retreated 
toward the next room. “Your name?” 

“My name”—with a smile that had more of mockery 
than joy in its convulsive expression—“my name is 
Benedict Arnold .” 

He was gone. Talleyrand sank into a chair, gasping 
the words: “Arnold, the Traitor.” 

Thus, you see, he wandered over earth, another Cain, 
with the murderer’s mark upon his brow. Even in 
the secluded room of that inn at Havre his crime found 
him out and forced him to tell his name—that synonym 
of infamy. 

The last twenty years of his life are covered with a 
cloud from whose darkness but a few gleams of light 
flash out upon the page of history. 

The manner of his death is not distinctly known. 
But we can not doubt that he died utterly friendless; 
that his cold brow was unmoistened by one farewell 
tear; that remorse pursued him to the grave, whispering 
“John Andre!” in his ears, and that the memory of his 
course of glory gnawed like a canker at his heart, 
murmuring forever: “True to your country, what 
might you have been, O Arnold, the Traitor!” 


OTHELLO’S DEFENSE. 

Shakespeare: 

Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors— 

My very noble and approved good masters— 

That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter, 

It is most true; true, I have married her. 

The very head and front of my offending 



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Hath this extent—no more. Rude am I in speech, 

And little bless’d with the set phrase of peace; 

For since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith, 

Till now, some nine moons wasted, they have used 
Their dearest action in the tented field; 

And little of this great world can I speak, 

More than pertains to feats of broil and battle. 

And, therefore, little shall I grace my cause 

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience, 

I will a round, unvarnish’d tale deliver 

Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms, 

What conjuration, and what mighty magic 

(For such proceeding I am charged withal) 

I won his daughter with. 

Her father loved me; oft invited me, 

Still question’d me the story of my life, 

From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes, 

That I have pass’d. 

I ran it through, even from my boyish days, 

To the very moment that he bade me tell it. 

Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances, 

Of moving accidents, by flood and field; 

Of hair-breadth ’scapes i’ the imminent deadly breach; 
Of being taken by the insolent foe, 

And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence, 

And with it all my travel’s history. 

These things to hear 

Would Desdemona seriously incline, 

But still the house affairs would draw her thence; 
Which ever as she could with haste despatch, 

She’d come again, and with a greedy ear 
Devour up my discourse. Which I observing, 


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Took once a pliant hour, and found good means 
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart, 

That I would all my pilgrimage dilate, 

Whereof by parcels she had something heard, 

But not intentively. I did consent, 

And often did beguile her of her tears, 

When I did speak of some distressful stroke 
That my youth suffer’d. My story being done, 

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs. 

She swore—in faith, ’twas strange, ’twas passing 
strange; 

’Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful. 

She wish’d she had not heard it, yet she wish’d 
That Heaven had made her such a man; she thank’d 
me, 

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, 

I should but teach him how to tell my story, 

And that would woo her. Upon this hint, I spake; 
She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d; 

And I loved her, that she did pity them. 

This only is the witchcraft I have used— 

Here comes the lady; let her witness it. 


ONE DAY SOLITARY. 

J. T. Trowbridge . 

I am all right! Good-bye, old chap! 

Twenty-four hours, that won’t be long; 
Nothing to do but take a nap, 

And—say! can a fellow sing a song? 

Will the light fantastic be in order— 

A pigeon-wing on your pantry floor? 



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169 


What are the rules for a regular boarder? 

Be quiet? All right! Cling-clang goes the door. 

Clang-clink the bolts, and I am locked in; 

Some pious reflection and repentance 
Come next, I suppose, for I just begin 

To perceive the sting in the tail of my sentence— 
“One day whereof will be solitary.” 

Here I am at the end of my journey, 

And—well, it ain’t jolly, not so very— 

I’d like to throttle that sharp attorney! 

He took my money, the very last dollar— 

Didn’t leave me so much as a dime— 

Not enough to buy me a paper collar 

To wear at my trial; he knew all the time 
’Twas some that I got for the stolen silver. 

Why hasn’t he been indicted, too? 

If he doesn’t exactly rob and pilfer, 

He lives by the plunder of them that do. 

Then didn’t it put me into a fury 

To see him step up, and laugh and chat 
With the county attorney, and joke with the jury, 
When all was over, then go back for his hat 
While Sue was sobbing to break her heart, 

And all I could do was to stand and stare! 

He had pleaded my cause, he had played his part, 
And got his fee—and what more did he care? 

It’s droll to think how, just out yonder, 

The world goes jogging on the same; 

Old men will save, and boys will squander, 

And fellows will play at the same old game 


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Of get-and-spend—to-morrow, next year— 

And drink and carouse, and who will there be 
To remember a comrade buried here? 

I am nothing to them; they are nothing to me. 

They’ll set me to learning a trade, no doubt, 

And I must forget to speak or smile. 

I shall go marching in and out— 

One of a silent, tramping file 
Of felons, at morning, and noon, and night— 

Just down to the shops, and back to the cells, 

And work with a thief at left and right, 

And feed, and sleep, and—nothing else. 

Was I born for this? Will the old folks know? 

I can see them now on the old home-place; 

His gait is feeble, his step is slow, 

There’s a settled grief in his furrowed face; 

While she goes wearily groping about 
In a sort of dream, so bent, so sad! 

But this won’t do! I must sing and shout, 

And forget myself, or else go mad. 

I won’t be foolish; although, for a minute, 

I was there in my little room once more. 

What wouldn’t I give just now to be in it? 

The bed is yonder, and there is the door; 

The Bible is here on the neat white stand; 

The summer sweets are ripening now; 

In the flickering light I reach my hand 

From the window, and pluck them from the bough. 

When I was a child (Oh, well for me 
And them if I had never been older!), 


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When he told me stories on his knee, 

And tossed me, and carried me on his shoulder; 
When she knelt down and heard my prayer, 

And gave me, in my bed, my good-night kiss— 
Did they ever think that all their care 
For an only son could come to this? 

Foolish again! No sense in tears 

And gnashing the teeth; and yet, somehow, 

I haven’t thought of them so for years; 

I never knew them, I think, till now. 

How fondly, how blindly, they trusted me! 

When I should have been in my bed asleep, 

I slipped from the window, and down the tree, 
And sowed for the harvest which now I reap. 

Light-hearted, a proud, ambitious lad, 

I left my home that morning in May; 

What visions, what hopes, what plans I had! 

And what have I—where are they all—to-day? 
Wild fellows, and wine, and debts, and gaming, 
Disgrace, and the loss of place and friend; 

And I was an outlaw, past reclaiming; 

Arrest and sentence, and—this is the end! 

Five years! Shall ever I quit this prison? 

Homeless, an outcast, where shall I go? 

Return to them, like one arisen 

From the grave, that was buried long ago? 

All is still, ’tis the close of the week; 

I slink through the garden, I stop by the well, 
I see him totter, I hear her shriek!— 

What sort of a tale will I have to tell? 




172 BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 

But here I am! What’s the use of grieving? 

Five years!—will it be too late to begin? 
Can sober thinking and honest living 

Still make me the man I might have been? 
I’ll sleep—Oh, would I could wake to-morrow 
In that old room, to find, at last, 

That all my trouble and all their sorrow 
Are only a dream of the night that is past. 


TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE. 

Wendell Phillips. 

[Toussaint L’Ouverture, who has been pronounced one of the 
greatest statesmen and generals of the nineteenth century, saved his 
master and family by hurrying them on board a vessel at the insur¬ 
rection of the negroes of Hayti. He then joined the negro army, and 
soon found himself at their head. Napoleon sent a fleet with French 
veterans, with orders to bring him to France at all hazards. But all 
the skill of the French soldiers could not subdue the negro army; 
and they finally made a treaty, placing Toussaint L’Ouverture gov¬ 
ernor of the island. The negroes no sooner disbanded their army 
than a squad of soldiers seized Toussaint bv night, and, taking him 
on board a vessel, hurried him to France. There he w r as placed in a 
dungeon, and finally starved to death.] 

If I were to tell you the story of Napoleon, I should 
take it from the lips of Frenchmen, who find no 
language rich enough to paint the great captain of the 
nineteenth century. Were I to tell you the story of 
Washington, I should take it from your hearts—you, 
who think no marble white enough on which to carve 
the name of the Father of His Country. But I am to 
tell you the story of the negro, Toussaint L’Ouverture, 
who has left hardly one written line. I am to glean it 
from the reluctant testimony of his enemies—men who 
despised him because he was a negro and a slave, hated 
him because he had beaten them in battle. 

Cromwell manufactured his own army. Napoleon, 
at the age of twenty-seven, was placed at the head of 


i 




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1T6 


the best troops Europe ever saw. Cromwell never saw 
an army till he was forty; this man never saw a soldier 
till he was fifty. Cromwell manufactured his own army 
—out of what? Englishmen—the best blood in Europe. 
Out of the middle class of Englishmen—the best blood 
of the island. And with it he conquered what ? English¬ 
men—their equals. Thislman manufactured his army 
out of what? Out of what you call the despicable race 
of negroes, debased, demoralized by two hundred years 
of slavery, one hundred thousand of them imported into 
the island within four years, unable to speak a dialect 
intelligible even to each other. Yet out of this mixed, 
and, as you say, despicable mass he forged a thunder¬ 
bolt and hurled it at what? At the proudest blood in 
Europe, the Spaniard, and sent him home conquered; 
at the most warlike blood in Europe, the French, and 
put them under his feet; at the pluckiest blood in 
Europe, the English, and they skulked home to Jamaica. 
Now, if Cromwell was a general, at least this man was 
a soldier. 

Now^ blue-eyed Saxon, proud of your race, go back 
with me to the commencement of the century, and 
select what statesman you please. Let him be either 
American or European; let him have a brain the result 
of six generations of culture; let him have the ripest 
training of university routine; let him add to it the 
better education of practical life; crown his temples 
with the silver locks of seventy years, and show me the 
man of Saxon lineage for whom his most sanguine 
admirer will wreathe a laurel, rich as embittered foes 
have placed on the brow of this negro—rare military 
skill, profound knowledge of human nature, content to 


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blot out all party distinctions, and trust a state to the 
blood of its sons—anticipating Sir Robert Peel fifty 
years, and taking his station by the side of Roger 
Williams before any Englishman or American had 
won the right; and yet this is the record which the 
history of rival states makes up for this inspired black 
of St. Domingo. 

Some doubt the courage of the negro. Go to Hayti, 
and stand on those fifty thousand graves of the best 
soldiers France ever had, and ask them what they think 
of the negro’s sword. 

I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his 
way to empire over broken oaths and through a sea of 
blood. This man never broke his word. I would call 
him Cromwell, but Cromwell was only a soldier, and 
the state he founded went down with him into his grave. 
I would call him Washington, but the great Virginian 
held slaves. This man risked his empire rather than 
permit the slave-trade in the humblest village of his 
dominions. 

You think me a fanatic, for you read history,*not with 
your eyes but with your prejudices. But fifty years 
hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of history 
will put Phocion for the Greek, Brutus for the Roman, 
Hampden for England, Fayette for France, choose 
Washington as the bright consummate flower of our 
earlier civilization; then,' dipping her pen in the sun¬ 
light, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the 
name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, Tous- 
SAINT L’OUVERTURE. 


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175 


ROME AND CARTHAGE. 

Victor Hugo. 

Rome, like the eagle, her formidable symbol, spreads 
her wings, displays her powerful talons, seizes the 
lightning, and takes her flight. Carthage is the sun of 
the world; it is on Carthage that her eyes are fixed. 
Carthage is mistress of seas. Carthage is mistress of 
peoples. She is a magnificent city, full of splendor and 
opulence, glowing at every point with the strange arts 
of the Orient. 

Her inhabitants are polished, refined, finished, and 
lack nothing that labor, men, and time can command. 
In a word, she is the metropolis of Africa and at the 
height of her culture; she can mount no higher, and 
every step onward will now be downward. Rome, on 
the contrary, has nothing. She is half savage, half 
barbarous. She has her education and her fortune 
alike to gain. All is before her; nothing behind. 

Long the two nations are face to face. The one 
suns herself in her glory; the other is growing in 
obscurity. But, little by little, air and place are needed 
by both for development. Rome begins to crowd 
Carthage; for long has Carthage pressed on Rome. 
Seated on the opposite shores of the Mediterranean, the 
two cities look one another in the eye. This sea no 
longer suffices to separate them. Europe and Africa 
are in the balance, weighing one against the other. 
Like two overcharged electric clouds, they approach 
too near each other. They are eager to mingle their 
lightnings. Here is the climax of this sublime drama. 

What actors are before us! Two races—this one, of 
merchants and sailors; that one, of farmers and soldiers; 


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two peoples, one ruling by gold, one ruling by iron; 
two republics, one theocratic, one aristocratic—Rome 
and Carthage; Rome with her army, Carthage with 
her fleet; Carthage, old, rich, and crafty; Rome, young, 
poor, and strong; the past and the future; the spirit of 
discovery and the spirit of conquest; the genius of 
travel and commerce, the demon of war and ambition; 
the east and the south on one side, the west and the 
north on the other; in short, two worlds—the civilization 
of Africa and the civilization of Europe. 

Each takes full measure of the.other. Their atti¬ 
tudes before the conflict are equally formidable. 
Rome, within the narrow confines of her world, 
gathers all her forces, all her tribes. Carthage, who 
holds in her power Spain, Armorica, and that Britain 
that the Romans believed to be at the end of the uni¬ 
verse, is ready to board the European ship. 

The battle-flames blaze forth. In coarse, strong 
lines, Rome copies the navy of her rival. The war at 
once breaks forth in the peninsula and the islands. 
Rome collides with Carthage in that Sicily where 
Greece and Egypt had already met; in that Spain 
where, later yet, Europe and Africa met, in contest—the 
east and the west, the south and the north. 

Little by little the combat thickens—the world takes 
fire. It is a hand-to-hand fight of Titans, who seize 
one another, and quit their hold only to seize each other 
again. They meet again, and are mutually repulsed. 
Carthage crosses the Alps; Rome passes the sea. The 
two nations, personified in their two leaders, Hannibal 
and Scipio, each grasping the other with fury, strive to 
end the conflict. It is a duel without quarter, a combat 


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177 


to the death. Rome reels; she utters the cry of 
anguish: “ Hannibal at the gates!” * * * But once 
again she rises, gathers her forces for a last blow, hurls 
herself on Carthage, and destroys her from the face of 
the earth. 


THE BLACKSMITH’S STORY. 

Frank Olive. 

Well, no! My wife ain’t dead, sir, but I’ve lost her 
all the same; 

She left me voluntarily, and neither was to blame. 

It’s rather a queer story, and I think you will agree— 

When you hear the circumstances—’twas rather rough 
on me. 

She was a soldier’s widow. He was killed at Malvern 
Hill; 

And when I married her she seemed to sorrow for him 
still. 

But I brought her here to Kansas, and I never want 
to see 

A better wife than Mary was for five bright years 
to me. 

The change of scene brought cheerfulness, and soon a 
rosy glow 

Of happiness warmed Mary’s cheeks and melted all 
their snow. 

I think she loved me some—I’m bound to think that of 
her, sir; 

And as for me—I can’t begin to tell how I loved her! 

Three years ago the baby came our humble home to 
bless; 



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And then I reckon I was nigh to perfect happiness. 

’Twas hers—’twas mine; but I’ve no language to 
explain to you, 

How that little girl’s weak fingers our hearts together 
drew! 

Once we watched it through a fever, and with each 
gasping breath, 

Dumb.with an awful, worldless woe, we waited for its 
death; 

And, though I’m not a pious man, our souls together 
there, 

For Heaven to spare our darling, went up in voiceless 
prayer. 

And when the doctor said ’twould live, our joy what 
words could tell? 

Clasped in each other’s arms, our grateful tears 
together fell. 

Sometimes, you see, the shadow fell across our little 
nest, 

But it only made the sunshine seem a doubly welcome 
guest. 

Work came to me .a-plenty, and I kept the anvil 
ringing; 

Early and late you’d find me there, a-hammering and 
singing; 

Lo'je nerved my arm to labor and moved my tongue 
to song, 

And, though my singing wasn’t sweet, it was tremen¬ 
dous strong. 

One day a one-armed stranger stopped to have me nail 
a shoe, 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 179 

And while I was at work we passed a compliment or 
two; 

I asked him how he lost his arm. He said ’twas shot 
away 

At Malvern Hill. “At Malvern Hill! Did you know 
Robert May? ” 

“That’s me,” said he. “You, you!” I gasped, choking 
with horrid doubt; 

“If you’re the man, just follow me; we’ll try this 
mystery out!” 

With dizzy steps, I led him to Mary. God! ’Twas 
true! 

Then the bitterest pangs of misery, unspeakable, I 
knew. 

Frozen with deadly horror, she stared with eyes of 
stone, 

And from her quivering lips there broke one wild, 
despairing moan. 

’Twas he, the husband of her youth, now risen from 
the dead. 

But all too late—and with bitter cry, her senses fled. 

What could be done? He was reported dead. On his 
return 

He strove in vain some tidings of his absent wife to 
learn. 

’Twas well that he was innocent! Else I’d ’ve killed 
him, too, 

So dead he never would have riz till Gabriel’s trumpet 
v blew. 

It was agreed that Mary then between us should 
decide, 


180 BROWN’S POPULAR READINGS. 

And each by her decision would sacredly abide. 

No sinner, at the judgment-seat, waiting eternal doom, 

Could suffer what I did, while waiting sentence in that 
room. 

Rigid and breathless, there we stood, with nerves as 
tense as steel,* 

While Mary’s eyes sought each white face, in piteous 
appeal. 

God! Could not woman’s duty be less hardly recon¬ 
ciled 

Between her lawful husband and the father of her 
child? 

Ah, how my heart was chilled to ice, when she knelt 
down and said: 

“Forgive me, John! He' is my husband! Here! 
Alive! Not dead!” 

I raised her tenderly, and tried to tell her she was 
right, 

But somehow, in my aching breast, the prisoned words 
stuck tight! 

“ But, John, I can’t leave baby.” “What! wife and 
child! ” cried I. 

“Must I yield all? Ah, cruel fate! Better that I 
should die. 

Think of the long, sad, lonely hours, waiting in gloom 
for me— 

No wife to cheer me with her love; no babe to climb 
my knee! 

“And yet—you are her mother, and the sacred mother 
love 


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181 


Is still the purest, tenderest tie that Heaven ever wove. 

Take her, but promise, Mary—for that will bring no 
shame— 

My little girl shall bear, and learn to lisp, her father’s 
name! ” 

It may be, in the life to come, I’ll meet my child and 
wife; 

But yonder, by my cottage gate, we parted for this 
life; 

One long hand-clasp from Mary, and my dream of 
love was done! 

One long embrace from baby, and my happiness was 
gone! 


MATT. F. WARD’S TRIAL FOR MURDER. 

John J. Crittenden. 

Gentlemen, my task is done; the decision of this case 
—the fate of this prisoner—is in your hands. Guilty 
or innocent—life or death—whether the captive shall 
joyfully go free, or be .consigned to a disgraceful and 
ignominious death—all depend on a few words from 
you. Is there anything in this world more like 
Omnipotence, more like the power of the Eternal, than 
that you now possess? 

Yes, you are to decide; and, as I leave the case with 
you, I implore you to consider it well and mercifully 
before you pronounce a verdict of guilty—a verdict 
which is to cut asunder all the tender cords that bind 
heart to heart, and to consign this young man, in the 
flower of his days and in the midst of his hopes, to 
shame and to death. Such a verdict must often come 



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up in your recollections—must live forever in your 
minds. 

And in after-days, when the wild voice of clamor 
that now fills the air is hushed, when memory shall 
review this busy scene, should her accusing voice tell 
you you have dealt hardly with a brother’s life—that 
you have sent him to death, when you have a doubt 
whether it is not your duty to restore him to life—oh, 
what a moment that must be! How like a cancer must 
that remembrance prey upon your hearts! 

But if, on the other hand, having rendered a contrary 
verdict, you feel that there should have been a convic¬ 
tion —that sentiment will be easily satisfied; you will 
say: “If I erred, it. was on the side of mercy; thank 
God I incurred no hazard by condemning a man I 
thought innocent.” How different the memory from 
that which may come in any calm moment, by day or 
by night, knocking at the door of your hearts, and 
reminding you that, in a case where you were doubtful, 
by your verdict you sent an innocent man to disgrace 
and to death! Oh, pronounce no such, I beseech you, 
but on the most certain, clear, and solid grounds! If 
you err, for your own sake, as well as his, keep on the 
side of humanity, and save him from so dishonorable a 
fate—preserve yourselves from so bitter a memory. 

I am no advocate, gentlemen, of any criminal licen¬ 
tiousness. I desire that society may be protected; that 
the laws of my country may be obeyed and enforced. 
Any other state of things I should deplore; but I have 
examined this case, I think, carefully and calmly. I 
see much to regret, much that I wish had never hap¬ 
pened; but I see no evil intentions and motives, no 
wicked malignity, and, therefore, no murder—no felony. 


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183 


There is another consideration of which we should 
not be unmindful. We are all conscious of the infirmi¬ 
ties of our nature; we are all subject to them. The law 
makes an allowance for such infirmities. The Author 
of our being has been pleased to fashion us out of great 
and mighty elements, which make us but a little lower 
than the angels, but he has mingled in our composition 
weakness and passions. Will He punish us for frailties 
which nature has stamped upon us, or for their necessary 
results? The distinction between these and acts that 
proceed from a wicked and malignant heart is founded 
* on eternal justice, and, in the words of the Psalmist: 
“He knoweth our frame—He remembereth that we are 
dust.” Shall not the rule He has established be good 
enough for us to judge by? 

Gentlemen, the case is closed. Again I ask you to 
consider it well before you pronounce a verdict which 
shall consign this prisoner to a grave of ignominy and 
dishonor. These are no idle words you have heard so 
often. This is your fellow-citizen—a youth of promise 
—the rose of his family—the possessor of all kind and 
virtuous and manly qualities. It is the blood of a 
Kentuckian you are c lied upon to shed. The blood 
that flows in his veins has come down from those noble 
pioneers who laid the foundations for the greatness and 
glory of our State; it is the blood of a race who have 
never spared it when demanded by their country’s 
cause. It is his fate you are to decide. I excite no 
poor, unmanly sympathy—I appeal to no low, groveling 
spirit. He is a man—you are men—and I only want 
that sympathy which man can give to man. 


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I will not detain you longer. But you know, and it 
is right you should, the terrible suspense in which some 
of these hearts must beat during your absence. It is 
proper for you to consider this, for, in such a case, all 
the feelings of the mind and heart should sit in council 
together. Your duty is yet to be done; perform it as 
you are ready to answer for it, here and hereafter. 
Perform it calmly and dispassionately, remembering 
that vengeance can give no satisfaction to any human 
being. But if you exercise it in this case, it will spread 
black midnight and despair over many aching hearts. 
May the God of all mercy be with you in your delibera¬ 
tions, assist you in the performance of your duty, and 
teach you to judge your fellow-being as you hope to 
be judged hereafter! 


AWAIT THE ISSUE. 

Thomas Carlyle. 

In this world, with its wild-whirling eddies and mad- 
foam oceans, where men and nations perish as without 
law, and judgment for an unjust thing is sternly de¬ 
layed, dost thou think that there is therefore no justice? 
It is what the fool hath said in his heart. It is what the 
wise, in all times, were wise because they denied, and 
knew forever not to be. I tell thee again, there is 
nothing else but justice. One strong thing I find here 
below—the just thing, the true thing. 

My friend, if thou hadst all the artillery of Woolwich 
trundling at thy back in support of an unjust thing, and 
infinite bonfires visibly waiting ahead of thee, to blaze 
forth centuries long for thy victory on behalf of it, I 



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185 


would advise thee to cry halt, to fling down thy baton, 
and say: “In Heaven’s name, No!” 

Thy “success?” Poor fellow, what will thy success 
amount to? If the thing is unjust, thou hast not suc¬ 
ceeded ; no, not though bonfires blazed from north to 
south, and bells rang, and editors wrote leading articles, 
and the just things lay trampled out of sight, to all 
mortal eyes an abolished and annihilated thing. 

It is the right and noble alone that will have victory 
in this struggle; the rest is wholly an obstruction, a 
postponement and fearful imperilment of the victory. 
Toward an eternal center of right and nobleness, and 
of that only, is all confusion tending. We already 
know whither it is tending; what will have victory, 
what will have none! The Heaviest will reach 
the center. The Heaviest has its deflections, its ob¬ 
structions—nay, at times its reboundings; whereupon 
some blockhead will be heard jubilating: “See, your 
Heaviest ascends!” But at all times it is moving center- 
ward, fast as is convenient for it; and bylaws older 
than the world, old as the Master’s first plan of the 
world, it has to arrive there. 

Await the issue. In all battles, if you await the 
issue, each fighter has prospered - according to his right. 
His right and his might, at the close of the account, were 
one and the same. He has fought with all his might, 
and in exact proportion to all his right he has prevailed. 
His very death is no victory over him. He dies indeed; 
but his work lives, very truly lives. 

A heroic Wallace, quartered on the scaffold, can not 
hinder that his work become, one day, a part of Eng¬ 
land; but he does hinder that it become, on tyrannical 


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and unfair terms, a part of it; commands still, from his 
okLValhalla and Temple of the Brave, that there be a 
just, real union, as of brother and brother; not a false 
and merely semblant one, as of slave and master. If the 
union with England be in fact one of Scotland’s chief 
blessings, we thank Wallace withal that it was not the 
chief curse. Scotland is not Ireland; no, because brave 
men rose there and said: “Behold ye must not tread us 
down like slaves; and ye shall not and can not!” 

Fight on, thou brave, true heart, and falter not, 
through dark fortune and through bright. The cause 
thou tightest for, so far as it is true—no farther, yet pre¬ 
cisely so far—is very sure of victory. The falsehood 
alone of it will be conquered, will be abolished, as it 
ought to be; but the truth of it is part of Nature’s own 
laws; co-operates with the world’s eternal tendencies, 
and can not be conquered. 


VIRGINIUS TO THE ROMAN ARMY. 

Elijah Kellogg . 

The night wind blew in fitful gusts, with occasional 
dashes of rain, where, grouped arou«nd their watch- 
fires and sheltered by the dense foliage of a beechen 
grove, a Roman cohort held its leaguer. Some, their 
spears thrust into the ground beside them, sat upright 
against the trees; while others lay at full length, with 
their heads resting upon their shields. 

As the flames threw their red light upon the war- 
scarred faces of the veterans, they revealed only sullen 
features. No song nor jest was heard—no sound save 
the low hiss of the rain-drops on the embers, the bay of 



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187 


a wolf in the distant forest, and the low-muttered words 
of a soldier who was telling to his comrade how that, 
the night before, as the sun fell over the hills, a cen¬ 
turion rode past his beat full speed to Rome, summoned 
there by some new outrage of the Patricians. 

All that night, throughout the host, mysterious fore¬ 
bodings crept. Men around their watch-fires spake in 
low whispers; and many a silent grasp of the hand 
passed from man to man. As the night wore away, 
and the day dawned, Virginius, upon a foaming steed, 
his head bare and in his right hand a bloody knife, 
dashed past the guard to where—beneath an oak which, 
withered and scorched by sacrificial fires, flung no 
shadow—great Jove was worshiped. 

Mounting the altar-steps, he turned, and with blood¬ 
shot eyes glared upon the soldiers who thronged 
tumultuously around him. Holding aloft the bloody 
knife, he exclaimed: “With this weapon I have slain 
my onlv child, to preserve her from dishonor!” Yells 
of horror and bitter execrations rose from the whole 
army; and a thousand swords flashed in the sun’s bright 
beams. 

“Soldiers!” he cried, “I am like this blasted tree. 
Two years ago the Ides of May, three lusty sons went 
with me to the field. In one disastrous fight they per¬ 
ished. A daughter, beautiful as the day, yet remained. 
’Tis but a week ago you saw her here, bearing to her 
old sire home comforts prepared by her own hands, 
and sharing with him the evening meal; and you blessed 
her as you passed. 

“You’ll never see her more that weekly came, with 
the s: ft music of her voice and spells of home, to cheer 


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our hearts. As on her way to school she crossed the 
Forum, Appius Claudius, through his minion Marcus, 
claimed her as a slave. With desperate haste I rode to 
Rome. Ho ding my daughter by the hand, and by my 
side her uncle, her aged ‘grandsire, and Icilius her 
betrothed, I claim my child. 

“The judge, that he may gain his end, decides that in 
his house and custody she must remain till I, by legal 
process, prove my right! Tne guards approach. Trem¬ 
bling, she clings around my neck—her hot tears on my 
cheek. Snatching this knife from a butcher’s stall, I 
plunged it in her breast, that her pure soul might go 
free and unstained to her mother and her ancestors. 

“And this is the reward a grateful country gives her 
soldiery! Cursed be the day my mother bore me! 
Accursed my sire’s untimely joy! Accursed the twilight 
hour, when, ’mid Etruscan groves, I wooed and won 
Acestes’ beauteous child, while youth’s bright dreams 
were busy at my heart! 

“Soldiers, the deadliest foes of our liberties are behind, 
not before us. They are not the yEqui, the Volsci, and 
the Sabines, who meet us in fair fight; but that pam¬ 
pered aristocracy, who chain you by the dealh-penalty 
to the camp, that in your absence they may work their 
will upon those you leave behind. 

“But why do I seek to kindle a fire in ice? Why seek 
to arouse the vengeance of those who care for no 
miseries but their own, and are enamored of their fet¬ 
ters? I, indeed, can lose no more. Misfortune hath 
emptied her quiver; she hath no other shaft for this bleed¬ 
ing breast; but flatter not yourselves that the lust of 
Appius Claudius has expired with the defeat of his 
purpose. 


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189 

“Your homes, likewise, invite the destroyer. Into 
your folds the grim wolf will leap; among the lambs of 
your flocks will he revel, his jaws dripping blood. For 
you, also, the bow is bent; the arrow drawn to the head; 
and the string impatient of its charge. By all that I 
have lost, and that you imperil by delay, avenge this 
accursed wrong! 

“If you have arms, use them; liberties, vindicate 
them; patriotism,save the tottering state; natural affec¬ 
tion, protect the domestic hearth; piety, appease the 
wrath of the gods by avenging the blood that cries to 
heaven. To arms! to arms! or your swords will leap 
from their scabbards, the trumpets sound the onset, and 
the standards of themselves advance to rebuke your 
delay!” 


LADY OF LYONS. 

SCENE FROM ACT II., SCENE I. 

Bulwer. 

Pauline. I can not forego pride when I look on 
thee, and think that thou lovest me. Sweet Prince, 
tell me again of thy palace by the Lak 3 of Como; it is 
so pleasant to hear of thy splendors, since thou didst 
swear to me that they would be desolate without Paul¬ 
ine; and when thou describest them, it is with a mock¬ 
ing lip and a noble scorn, as if custom had made thee 
disdain greatness. 

Melnotte . Nay, dearest, nay; if thou would’st have 
me paint 



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The home to which, could Love fulfill its prayers, 
This hand would lead thee, listen!* A deep vale 
Shut out by Alpine hills from the rude world, 

Near a clear lake, margined by fruits of gold 
And whispering myrtles; glassing softest skies 
As cloudless, save with rare and roseate shadows, 

As I would have thy fate! 

Pauline . My own dear love! 

Melnotte . A palace lifting to eternal summer 
Its marble walls, from out a glossy bower 
Of coolest foliage, musical with birds, 

Whose songs should syllable thy name! At noon 
We sit beneath the arching vines, and wonder 
Why earth could be unhappy, while the heavens 
Still left us youth and love! We’d have no friends 
That were not lovers; no ambition, save 
To excel them all in love. We’d read no books 
That were not tales of love—that we might smile 
To think how poorly eloquence of words 
Translates the poetry of hearts like ours! 

And when night came, amidst the breathless heavens 
We’d guess what star should be our home when love 
Becomes immortal; while the perfumed light 
Stole through the mists of alabaster lamps, 

And every air was heavy with the sighs 
Of orange groves and music from sweet lutes, 


*The reader will observe that Melnotte evades the request of Paul¬ 
ine. He proceeds to describe a home, which he does not say he 
possesses, but to which he would lead her, “could love fulfill its 
prayers. This caution is intended as a reply to a sagacious critic 
who censures the description because it, is not an exact and prosaic 
inventory of the characteristics of the Lake of Como. When Mel¬ 
notte, for instance, talks of birds “that syllable thy name” (by the 
way a literal translation from an Italian poet), he is not thinking of 
ornithology, but probably of he Arabian lights. He is venting the 
extravagant, but natural, enthusiasm of the Poet and the Lover. 



BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


191 


And murmurs *of low fountains that gush forth 
I* the midst of roses! Dost thou like the picture? 

Pauline. Oh! as the bee upon the flower, I hang 
Upon the honey of thy eloquent tongue! 

Am I not blest? And if I love too wildly, 

Who would not love thee, like Pauline? 

Melnotte {bitterly). Oh, false one! 

It is the prince thou lovest, not thj man; 

If in the stead of luxury, pomp, and power 
I had painted poverty and toil and care, 

Thou hadst found no honey on my tongue. Pauline, 
That is not love! 

Pauline . Thou wrong’st me, cruel Prince! 

’Tis true, I might not at the first been won, 

Save through the weakness of a flattered pride; 

But now! —Oh! trust me—could’stthou fall from power 
And sink- 

Melnotte. As low as that poor gardener’s son 
Who dared to lift his eyes to thee? 

Pauline. Even then, 

Methinks thou would’st be only made more dear 
By the sweet thought that I could prove how deep 
Is woman’s love! We are like the insects, caught 
By the poor glittering of a garish flame! 

But oh, the wings once scorched, the brightest star 
•Lures us no more; and by the fatal light 
We cling till death! 

Melnotte. Angel! 

{Aside.) O conscience! conscience! 

It must not be!—her love hath grown a torture 
Worse than her hate. I will at once to Beauseant, 
And--ha! he comes-Sweet love, one moment 


leave me. 




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I have business with these gentlemen—I—I 
Will forthwith join you. 

Pauline. Do not tarry long! [Exit into House , L. 
s. E.] 

[Enter Beauseant and Glavis from House , l. s. e.] 

Melnotte. Release me from my oath—I will not 
marry her! 

Beauseant. Then thou art perjured. 

Melnotte. No, I was not in my senses when I swore 
to thee to marry her! I was blind to all but her scorn! 
—deaf to all but my passion and my rage! Give me 
back my poverty and my honor! 

Beauseant . It is too late—you must marry her! and 
this day! I have a story already coined—and sure to 
pass current. This Damas suspects thee—he will set 
the police to work; thou wilt be detected—Pauline will 
despise and execrate thee. Thou wilt be sent to the 
common gaol as a swindler. 

Melnotte. Fiend! 

Beauseant. And in the heat of the girl’s resentment 
(you know of what resentment is capable) and the 
parents’ shame, she will be induced to marry the first 
that offers—even perhaps your humble servant. 

Melnotte. You! No! That were worse—for thou 
hast no mercy! I will marry her—I will keep my oath. 
Quick, then, with the damnable invention thou art 
hatching; quick, if thou would’st not have me strangle 
thee or myself. 

Glavis. What a tiger! Too fierce for a Prince; he 
ought to have been the Grand Turk. 

Beauseant. Enough—I will despatch; be prepared. 


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193 


ACT III., SCENE II. 

Pauline (laughing wildly ). This is 
Thy palace, where the perfumed light 
Steals through the mists of alabaster lamps, 

And every air is heavy with the sighs 
Of orange groves, and music from sweet lutes, 

And murmurs of low fountains, that gush forth 
I’ the midst of roses! Dost thou like the picture? 

Phis is my bridal home, and thou my bridegroom! 

O fool! O dupe! O wretch! I see it all— 

The bye-word and the jeer of every tongue 
In Lyons! Hast thou in thy heart one touch 
Of human kindness? If thou hast, why, kill me, 

And save thy wife from madness. No, it can not, 

It can not be! This is some horrid dream. 

I shall wake soon (touching him'). Art flesh? art 
man? or but 

The shadows seen in sleep? It is too real. 

What have I done to thee? how sinn’d against thee, 
That thou should’st crush me thus? 

Melnotte. Pauline! by pride, 

Angels have fallen ere thy time; by pride— 

That sole alloy of thy most lovely mould— 

The evil spirit of a bitter love 

And a revengeful heart had power upon thee. 

From my first years, my soul was fill’d with thee. 

I saw thee, midst the flowers the lowly boy 
Tended, unmarked by thee, a spirit of bloom, 

And joy and freshness, as if spring itself 
Were made a living thing, and wore thy shape! 

I saw thee! and the passionate heart of man 
Enter’d the breast of the wild-dreaming boy; 

13 


194 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


And from that hour I grew—what to the last 
I shall be—thine adorer! Well! this love, 

Vain, frantic, guilty, if thou wilt, became 
A fountain of ambition and bright hope. 

I thought of tales that by*the winter hearth 
Old gossips tell—how maidens, sprung from kings, 
Have stoop’d from their high sphere; how Love, like 
Death, 

Levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd’s crook 
Beside the scepter. Thus I made my home 
In the soft palace of a fairy Future! 

My father died; and I, the peasant-born, 

Was my own lord. Then did I seek to rise 
Out of the prison of my mean estate; 

And, with such jewels as the exploring Mind 
Brings from the caves of Knowledge, buy my ransom 
From those twin gaolers of the daring heart— 

Low Birth and iron Fortune. Thy bright image, 
Glass’d in my soul, took all the hues of glory, 

And lured me on to those inspiring toils 
By which man masters men! 

A midnight student o’er the dreams of sages, 

For thee I sought to borrow from each Grace 
And every Muse such attributes as lend 
Ideal charms to Love. I thought of thee, 

And Passion taught me poesy—of thee! 

And on the painter’s canvas grew the life 
Of beauty. Art became the shadow 
Of the dear starlight of thy haunting eyes! 

Men called me vain, some mad—I heeded not, 

But still toil’d on, hoped on, for it was sweet, * 

If not to win, to feel more worthy thee! 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


195 


Pauline . Has he a magic to exorcise hate? 

Melnotte . At last, in one mad hour, I dared to pour 
The thoughts that burst their channels into song, 

And sent them to thee—such a tribute, lady, 

As beauty rarely scorns, even from the meanest. 

The name—appended by the burning heart 

That long’d to show its idol what bright things 

It had created—yea, the enthusiast’s name 

That should have been thy triumph, was thy scorn! 

That very hour—when passion, turned to wrath, 

Resembled hatred most; when thy disdain 

Made my whole soul a chaos—in that hour 

The tempters found me a revengeful tool 

For their revenge! Thou hadst trampled on the worm. 

It turned and stung thee! 

Pauline . Love, sir, hath no sting. 

What was the flight of a poor, powerless girl, 

To the deep wrong of this most vile revenge? 

Oh, how I loved this man!—a serf! a slave! 

Melnotte. Hold, lady! No, not slave! Despair is 
free! 

I will not tell thee of the throes, the struggles, 

The anguish, the remorse. No, let it pass! 

And let me come to such most poor atonement 
Yet in my power. Pauline! 

[Approaching her with great emotion, and about to 
take her hand.~\ 

Pauline . No, touch me not! 

I know my fate. You are, by law, my tyrant; 

And I—O Heaven!—a peasant’s wife! I’ll work, 
Toil, drudge; do what thou wilt; but touch me not; 
Let my wrongs make me sacred! 



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BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


Melnotte . Do not fear me. 

Thou dost not know me, Madame. At the altar 
My vengeance ceased, my guilty oath expired! 
Henceforth, no image of some marbled saint, 

Niched in cathedral’s aisles, is hallow’d more. 

From the rude hand of sacrilegious wrong. 

I am thy husband; nay, thou need’st not shudder. 

Here, at thy feet, I lay a husband’s rights. 

A marriage thus unholy—unfulfilled— 

A bond of fraud—is, by the laws of France, 

Made void and null. To-night, then, sleep—in peace. 
To-morrow, pure and virgin as this morn 
I bore thee, bathed in blushes, from the altar, 

Thy father’s arms shall take thee to thy home. 

The law shall do thee justice, and restore 
Thy right to bless another with thy love. 

And when thou art happy, and hast h^Jf forgot 
Him who so loved—so wrong’d thee, think at least 
Heaven left some remnant of the angel still 
In that poor peasant’s nature! 

Ho! my mother! 


Encore Recitations. 


WHAT INFIDELITY HAS NEVER DONE. 

Infidelity has never raised a man or woman from 
sin. It never took a drunkard from the gutter, a gam¬ 
bler from his cards, or the fallen from his life of shame. 
It never found a man coarse and brutal in life and 
character and made him a kind husband and father. It 
never went into heathen lands among the morally 
depraved and lifted them out of their degradation to a 
high state of civilization. It has never written down 
languages, translated literature, or prepared text-books, 
or planted schools, or established seminaries and col¬ 
leges. It has never founded hospitals for the sick or 
homes for the helpless. What discoveries has infidelity 
made? What improvements has it introduced? Has 
it added anything to human happiness? Does it bring 
one ray of comfort to the chamber of death? The 
religion of Jesus Christ has done all these things and 
more, too. The tree is known by its fruit. 


WHICH ONE? 

Isaac Hinton Brown. 

One of us, dear— 

But one— 

Will sit by a bed with a marvelous fear, 

And clasp a hand 
( 197 ) 




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Growing cold as it feels for the spirit land— 
Darling, which one ? 

One of us, dear— 

But one— 

Will stand by the other’s coffin bier, 

And look and weep, 

While those marble lips strange silence keep— 
Darling, which one? 

One of us, dear— 

But one— 

By an open grave will drop a tear, 

And homeward go, 

The anguish of an unshared grief to know— 
Darling, which one? 

One of us, darling, it must be. 

It may be you will slip from me , 

Or perhaps my life may first be done— 
Darling, which one? 


ONLY A PIN.* 

Only a pin, yet it calmly lay 
On the carpeted floor in the light of day; 
And shone serene and clear and bright, 
Reflecting back the noon-day light. 

Only a boy, yet he saw that pin, 

And his face assumed a fiendish grin; 

He stooped for a while, with look intent, 
Till he and the pin alike were bent. 

Only a chair, but upon its seat 
A well-bent pin found safe retreat; 



BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


199 


Nor could the keenest eye discerne 
That heavenward its point did turn. 

Only a man, but he chanced to drop 
Upon that chair; when—bang! whiz! pop! 
Like a cork from a bottle of champagne 
He bounded right up from that chair again. 

Only a yell, but an honest one, 

It lacked the remotest idea of fun; 

And man and boy, and pin and chair, 

In close communion mingled there. 

Only the pin out of all the four 
Alone no trace of damage bore; 

The man was mad and dreadfully sore; 

He lathered that boy behind and before. 

The chair lay smashed upon the floor, 

Its seat was not hurt, but the boy was raw. 

♦Recited with great success as an encore by Miss Edyth Brown. 


THOSE EVENING BELLS. 

Thomas Moore. 

Those evening bells! those evening bells! 
How many a tale their music tells 
Of youth, and home, and that sweet time 
When last I heard their soothing chime! 

Those joyous hours are passed away; 

And many a heart that then was gay 
Within the tomb now darkly dwells, 

And hears no more those evening bells. 




200 


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And so ’twill be when I am gone— 

That tuneful peal will still ring on; 

While other bards shall walk these dells, 
And sing your praise, sweet evening bells. 


THIS AND BEYOND. 

Isaac Hinton Brown. 

What shall I do, my dear, 

In the coming years, I wonder, 

When our paths, which lie so sweetly near, 
Shall lie so far asunder? 

O, what shall I do, my dear, 

Through all the sad to-morrows, 

When the sunny smile has ceased to cheer, 
That smiles away all sorrows? 

What shall I do, my friend, 

When you are gone forever? 

My heart its eager need will send, 

Through the years to find you, never. 

And how will it be with you, 

In the weary world, I wonder? 

Will you love me with a love as true, 

When our paths lie wide asunder? 

A sweeter, sadder thing, 

My life for having known you; 

Forever, with my sacred kin, 

My soul’s soul, I must own you; 

Forever mine, my friend, 

From June till life’s December; 

Not mine to have and hold, 

Mine to pray for and remember. 



BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


201 


The way is short, my friend, 

That reaches out before us, 

God’s tender heavens above us bend, 
His love is smiling o’er us. 

A little while is ours, 

For sorrow or for laughter; 

I’ll lay the hand you love in yours, 
On the shore of the hereafter. 


THE RAINY DAY. 

Henry W. Longfellow. 

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary; 

It rains, and the wind is never weary; 

The vine still clings to the moldering wall, 
But at every gust the dead leaves fall, 

And the day is dark and dreary. 

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; 

It rains, and the wind is never weary; 

My thoughts still cling to the moldering past, 
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, 
And the days are dark and dreary. 

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; 

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; 

Thy fate is the common fate of all, 

Into each life some rain must fall, 

Some days must be dark and dreary. 



202 


BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


THE GRATEFUL PREACHER. 

John G. Saxe. 

A strolling preacher, “once upon a time,” 

Addressed a congregation rather slim. 

In numbers, yet his subject was sublime 

(’Twas “Charity”); sonorous was the hymn; 
Fervent the prayer; and though the house was small, 
He pounded lustily the Sacred Word, 

And preached an hour as loud as he could bawl, 

As one who meant the gospel ^hould be heard. 
And now, behold, the preacher’s hat is sent 
Among the pews for customary pence, 

But soon returns as empty as it went! 

Whereat—low bowing to the audience— 

He said: “My preaching is not all in vain; 

Thank God! Tve got my beaver back again!" 


THE PUZZLED CENSUS-TAKER. 

John G. Saxe. 

il Nein” (pronounced nine) is the German for “No.” 

“Got any boys?” the marshal said 
To a lady from over the Rhine; 

And the lady shook her flaxen head, 

And civilly answered, “New!" 

“Got any girls?” the marshal said 
To the lady from over the Rhine; 

And again the lady shook her head, 

And civilly answered, “Nein /” 

“But some are dead?” -the marshal said 
To the lady from over.the Rhine; 

And again the lady shook her head, 

And civilly answered, “Nein!” 



BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


203 


“Husband, of course,” the marshal said 
To the lady from over the Rhine; 

And again she shook her flaxen head, 

And civilly answered, “ Nein /” 

“The devil you have!” the marshal said, 

To the lady from over the Rhine; 

And again she shook her flaxen head, 

And civilly answered, “Nein!” 

“Now, what do you mean by shaking your head, 
And always answering ‘Nine’?” 

“Ich kann nicht Englisch /” civilly said 
The lady from over the Rhine. 


A LOVELY SCENE. 

We stood at the bars as the sun went down 
Behind the hills on a summer day. 

Her eyes were tender, and big, and brown, 

Her breath as sweet as the new-mown hay. 

Far from the west the faint sunshine 
Glanced sparkling off her golden hair, 

Those calm, deep eyes were turned toward mine, 
And a look of contentment rested there. 

I see her bathed in the sunlight flood, 

I see her standing peacefully now; 

Peacefully standing and chewing her cud, 

As I rubbed her ears—that Jersey cow. 



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DO RIGHT—BE TRUE. 

Alice Carey. 

Children who read my lay, 

This much I have to say: 

Each day and every day, 

Do what is right! 

Right things in great and small; 

Then, though the sky sjiould fall, 

Sun, moon, and stars and all, 

You shall have light. 

This further would I say: 

Be tempted as you may, 

Each day and every day, 

Speak what is true! 

True things in great and small, 

Then, though the sky should fall, 

Sun, moon, and stars and all, 

Heaven would shine through. 


MARK TWAIN’S MINING STORY. 

[As recited by himself in his public entertainments.] 

John James Godfrey was hired by the Hay blossom 
Mining Company in California to do some blasting for 
them—the “ Incorporated Company of Mean Men,” 
the boys used to call it. Well, one day he drilled a 
hole about four feet deep and put in an awful blast of 
powder, and was standing over it ramming it down 
with an iron crow-bar about nine feet long, when the 
blamed thing struck a spark and fired the powder, and 
scat! away John Godfrey whizzed like a sky-rocket, 
him and his crow-bar! Well, sir, he kept on going up 
in the air higher and higher, till he didn’t look any 
bigger than a boy—and he kept on going up higher and 
higher till he didn’t look any bigger than a doll—and 



BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


205 


he kept on going up higher and higher till he didn’t 
look any bigger than a small bee—and then he went out 
of sight. Presently he came in sight again, looking like 
a little small bee—and he came along down further and 
further, till he looked as big as a doll again—and down 
further and further, till he was as big as a boy again— 
and further and further, till he was a full-sized man 
once more, and then him and his crow-bar came a-whiz- 
zing down and lit right exactly in the same old tracks 
and went to r-ramming down, and r-ramming down, 
and r-ramming down again, just the same as if nothing 
had happened! Now, do you know, that poor fellow 
was gone but sixteen minutes, and yet that Incorporated 
Company of Mean Men docked him for the 15 
minutes’ lost time while he was gone up in the air! 


HOW DENNIS TOOK THE PLEDGE. 

A Limerick Irishman named Dennis, addicted to 
strong drink, was often urged by his friends to sign the 
pledge, but with no avail, until one day they read to 
him from a newspaper an account of a man who had 
become so thoroughly saturated with alcohol, that on 
attempting to blow out a candle, his breath ignited, and 
he was instantly blown to atoms.' Dennis’s face showed 
mingled horror and contrition, and his friends thought 
that the long-desired moment of repentance was at hand. 

“Bring me the book,boys,bring me the book! Troth, 
his breath took foir, did it? Sure, I’ll niver die that 
death, onyhow,” said Dennis, with the most solemn 
countenance imaginable. “Hear me now, b’ys, hear me 
now. I, Dennis Finnegan, knowin’ my great weakness, 



206 


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deeply sensible of my past sins, an’ the great danger 
I’ve been in, hereby take me solemn oath, that so long 
as I live, under no provocation whatever, will I —blow 
out a candle agin.” 


THE BROKEN PITCHER. 

As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping, 

With a pitcher of milk, from the Fair of Coleraine, 
When she saw me she stumbled, the pitcher it tumbled, 
And all the sweet buttermilk watered the plain. 

“Oh, what shall I do now ?—’twas looking at you now. 

Sure, sure, such a pitcher I’ll ne’er meet again! 

’Twas the pride of my dairy; O Barney M’Cleary! 
You’re sent as a plague to the girls of Coleraine.” 

I sat down beside her, and gently did chide her, 

That such a misfortune should give her such pain 
A kiss then I gave her; and, ere I did leave her, 

She vowed for such pleasure she’d break it again. 

’Twas hay-making season—I can’t tell the reason— 
Misfortunes will never come single, ’tis plain; 

For very soon after poor Kitty’s disaster — 

Sure, never a pitcher was whole in Coleraine. 


HOMEWARD. 

The day dies slowly in the western sky; 

The sunset splendor fades, and wan and cold 
The far peaks wait the sunrise: cheerily 

The goatherd calls his wanderers to their fold. 




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207 


My weary soul, that fain would cease to roam, 
Take comfort; evening bringeth all things home. 

Homeward the swift-winged seagull takes its flight; 

The ebbing tide breaks softly on the sand; 

The sunlit boats draw shoreward for the night; 

The shadows deepen over sea and land; 

Be still, my soul, thine hour shall also come; 
Behold, one evening God shall lead thee home. 


A MIDNIGHT TRAGEDY. 

Two lovers lean on the garden gate; 
The hour is late. 

At a chamber window her father stands, 
And rubs his hands. 

For awhile he watches them unawares, 
Then goes down-stairs. 

He looses the dog from his iron chain— 
The rest is plain. 

The moonlight silvers the garden gate; 
The hour is late. 


TRUE TEACHING. 

Thou must be true thyself, 

If thou the truth wouldst teach; 
Thy soul must overflow, if thou 
Another soul wouldst reach— 

It needs the overflowing heart 
To give the lips full speech. 




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BROWN'S POPULAR READINGS. 


Think truly, and thy thought 
Shall the world’s famine feed; 
Speak truly, and each word of thine 
Shall be a fruitful seed; 

Live truly, and thy life shall be 
A great and noble creed. 


SUGGESTIONS ON READING. 

By Isaac Hinton Brown. 

Cultivate the habit of listening to others. 

Avoid all forms of slang: No speaker ever exhausted 
the English language. 

In conversation, remember it is yourself you are 
impersonating, and you will be judged accordingly. 

Reading as an art is the interpretation and expres¬ 
sion of thought, sentiment and emotion as presented in 
written and printed composition. 

It may be safely asserted that no single art cultivated 
by civilized races exerts so great an influence and con¬ 
fers so much pleasurable recreation upon so many 
people as that of reading. 

The greatest excellence to which students, ambitious of 
oratorical fame, may aspire is comprised in the ability to 
speak fluently, logically and effectively upon any sub¬ 
ject, at any time, without previous preparation. 

Before any pupil attempts to read or speak he should 
be taught to inhale deeply through the nostrils. No 
gasping or swallowing of air should be permitted. The 
pupils must be taught to keep their lips closed at all 
times when not in use. 


A 



ARE YOU 
PREPARING FOR 
EXAMINATION oh 
REVIEW? 

If so, let us suggest that you procure a copy of 

BROWN’S * 

COMMON SCHOOL 
“EXAMINER 
REVIEW,” ♦ 



Prepared by a number of County and City Superintendents. 

REVISED, WITH ANSWERS. 

It Contains Nearly 3,000 Questions on 


ORTHOGRAPHY, with Answers. 
ARITHMETIC, with Answers. 

U. S. HISTORY, with Answers. 
PHYSIOLOGY, with Answers. 
PHILOSOPHY, with Answers. 
THEORY AND PRACTICE OF 
TEACHING, with Answers. 
READING, with Answers. 
GRAMMAR, with Answers. 


BOTANY, with Answers. 
ZOOLOGY, with Answers. 
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, with 
Answers. 

CIVIL GOVERNMENT, with An¬ 
swers. 

PENMANSHIP, with Answers 
GEOGRAPHY, with Answers. 


Selected from over 8,000 Examination Papers, used by State, 
County and City Superintendents in the examination of teachers and pupils. 

Answered in the clearest and most concise manner. 


The questions are arranged, as nearly as possible, according to gradation. 

No attempt has been made to multiply questions. The most 
familiar topics are omitted. From the great mass of material at hand the 
authors have selected those questions and problems only which are unusual, 
or which present peculiar difficulty in their answer or solution. 

signed for Examiners , Teachers , Pupils , and Institute Conductors , 
and all who desire to pa ;s a creditable examination. 

Pull Cloth Binimg—373 pages, Price $1.00. 

It contains as much matter as any $1.50 Question Book in 
the market. It is better bound and is on better paper, and 
sells at Two-Thirds the price. 

How does it sell? Well, somewhat! 110,000 copies sold in five 
years, and many want it yet. This is a big country, and there is always 
room for a good thing. 

IT IS PREPAID AT $1.00. 


GENTS WANTED. 


A. FLANAGAN, Chicago. 










Helps and Aids in Teaching Arithmetic. 

Cook’s Method in Written Arithmetic... $o 50 


Galer’s Practical Methods in Written 

Arithmetic. 5 ° 

Lowell's Labor Saving Problems. 35 

Primary Number Cards. 12 

Parker’s Quincy Course in Arithmetic... 15 

Botany. 

Callahan’s Outlines and Experimental 

Work in Botany. 25 

Hall’s Common Sense Botany. 15 

Drawing. 

Children’s Drawing Teacher, i, 2, 3, each "■ 25 

Drawing Made Easy Series, 1, 2,3,4, each 25 

Hull’s Drawing Book. 35 

75 Very Easy Drawings. 12 

Busy Work and General Exercises. 

Alphabet Cards, 500 in box. 12 

Curious Cobwebs, 1 and 2 each. 20 

Downing’s Helps in Teaching Little 

Folks. 30 

Hall’s Busy Work Devices. 10 

Miss George’s Busy or Seat Work for 

Little People. 15 

Kenyon’s Sentence Cards. 25 

Stencils for the Blackboard, 250 designs, 

each. 05 

Civil Government. 

Callahan’s Outlines Civil Government of 

U. S. 15 

Trowbridge’* Illinois and the Nation. 75 

Composition. 

Composition and Letter Writing. 10 

Hall's Composition Outlines. 15 

Grant’s Primary Reproduction Stories... 15 

Etiquette and Ethics. 

Bass’ Select Stories for Opening Exer¬ 
cises in School.... 75 

Chancellor’s Primary Memory Gems. 12 

Practical Etiquette. 40 

Helps and Aids in Teaching Geography, 

Callahan’s Outlines in Geography. . 15 

McCormick’s Practical Work in Geogra¬ 
phy. 1 00 

Wick’s & Boyer’s How to Teach and 


Study Geography.Pt. I 50, Pt. II 60 


* Gymastics, Drills, etc. 

Barnett’s Flag Drill... 25 

Brief Manual of Gymnastics. 1 2 

Thompson’s Drills and Marches.,. 25 

History. 

Chase’s The Land We Live In. 40 

Ensign’s Outlines, Tables and Sketches 

in U. S. History... 25 

Ensign’s Outlines iu Ancient-and Mod¬ 
ern History. 60 

Freeman’s General History Cards. 50 

Rice’s Course of Study in History and 

Literature..... 20 

Trainer’s How to Teach and Study U. S. 

History. 100 

language and Grammar. 

Bur.on’s Outlines in Grammar. 20 

Patrick’s Lessons in English. 50 

Patrick’s Essentials of English.... 35 

Parker’s Hints and Suggestions on the 

Teaching of Language. 20 

Principles and Methods of Instruction. 

Hall’s 100 Points Picked Up in the Man¬ 
agement of a School. 10 

Hall’s 100 Hints on Conducting a Recita¬ 
tion. 10 

Mason,s 1,000 Ways of 1,000 Teachers. 75 

Diterary and Educational Games. 

Carroll’s Graded Literary Cards, America 

and English, each. 50 

Boroffs Gems of Thought, or Literary 

Cards. 35 

Wilhelm’s Literary Whist, or Games or 

Great Men. 40 

Physiology. 

Callahan’s Outlines of Physiology. 15 

“ Guide to Practical Work in 
Physiology. 35 

Speakers and Dialogues. 

Castle’s School Entertainments. 30 

Morrison’s Recitations, 1, 2, and 3, each. 20 

Pritchard’s Choice Dialogues. 20 

Ten Dialogues in Rhyme. 10 

School Singing Books. 

Hanson’s Merry Melodies. 15 

The Fountain Song Book Series, 1, 2 and 

3. each. 15 

Hanson’s Primary and Calisthenic Songs 60 
Hanson’s Merry Songs. 30 


/fT* ^ | f\ fw 1 1 IT My large Catalogue is a necessity to every wide-awake-on - 
^JTi 1 rlLvViML* the-look-out-for-all-thc-hclp-he-can-get teacher. It describes 
the above, and hosts of other similar goods. Sent free on request. 


A. FLANAGAN. Publisher, CHICAGO. 




































































































































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